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I think this is actually totalitarian left - the right is more about personal liberties etc. Not trolling – I might be wrong –people more knowledgeable about t

by voidz 9y ago

I think this is actually totalitarian left - the right is more about personal liberties etc. Not trolling – I might be wrong –people more knowledgeable about the left/right dichotomy are welcome to shed some light onto this.

metaphorm 9y ago
at the extremes, both left and right are totalitarian and are nightmarish w.r.t personal liberties. this is sometimes called the "horsheshoe political spectrum" [0] but personally I think that's a misunderstanding of political belief systems. left vs. right is meaningless. the real axis runs between liberation and domination. extreme domination parties (whether nominally capitalist, communist, fascist, or theocratic) are the scary ones that have that bloody track record of holocausts and genocides. 0 - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Horseshoe_theory https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Horseshoe_theory
TheGirondin 9y ago
>I think this is actually totalitarian left You're absolutely right. There is only one side organizing at grassroots level (indicating that these are not isolated occurrences, but rather are coming from the groups shared ideals) across the country to shut down the political speech of the other, violently in many cases, and that is the left.
- WaxProlix 9y ago
  Sure thing buddy. http://atlantablackstar.com/2017/05/15/white-supremacist-richard-spencer-leads-march-charlottesville-va-reminiscent-kkk-gathering/ http://atlantablackstar.com/2017/05/15/white-supremacist-ric...
  - TheGirondin 9y ago
    Thanks for posting, as this one event by the far, far right with a couple dozen people stands in sharp contrast to dozens and dozens of examples involving as many as hundreds of people from the left, and really shows how unequatable they are.
    - knowaveragejoe 9y ago
      This is just the most high profile example in recent memory.
      - TheGirondin 9y ago
        Which doesn't change the reality of what I've said. I even linked to an left-wing incident that happened over the weekend, with an order of magnitude more people. http://college.usatoday.com/2017/05/30/protests-erupt-over-racism-at-evergreen-state-college/ http://college.usatoday.com/2017/05/30/protests-erupt-over-r...
        knowaveragejoe 9y ago
        Sorry, I was wrong. The stabbing on the bus in Oregon is probably the most high profile example of a xenophobia-motivated killing: http://ktla.com/2017/05/30/portland-man-accused-of-stabbing-killing-2-men-yells-in-court-you-call-it-terrorism-i-call-it-patriotism/ http://ktla.com/2017/05/30/portland-man-accused-of-stabbing-...
- metaphorm 9y ago
  censorship is favored by any kind of authoritarian extremist group and is independent of left/right (which I perceive as an increasingly meaningless distinction). organized censorship is practiced, historically, by organizations as diverse as the Ayatollah of Iran, the Chinese Communist Party, the NAZI party, and by some microscopic evangelical Church in Arkansas that you've never heard of. Now a certain kind of deranged college professor (and the students they influence) are doing it too. So what is the left and what is the right? the categories we're accustomed to reading about have broken down. it's something else now and its time to acknowledge it.
sharemywin 9y ago
It's economic versus social issues. The "left" is more authoritarian on economic issues. The "right" is more authoritarian on social issues.
- TheGirondin 9y ago
  Maybe in the past, the left has grown increasingly authoritarian on social issues over the last few years. Just yesterday a mob of left-wing students tried to assault a professor over a social issue. http://college.usatoday.com/2017/05/30/protests-erupt-over-racism-at-evergreen-state-college/ http://college.usatoday.com/2017/05/30/protests-erupt-over-r...
  - sharemywin 9y ago
    The alt-left I guess.
dragonwriter 9y ago
> I think this is actually totalitarian left - the right is more about personal liberties etc. Both the left anf the right talk a lot about personal liberties (though they focus on different specific liberties). Both the left and the right have domains where they generally favor government control. And both the left and the right have factions which are more libertarian (focussing more on the areas of personal liberty favored by their respective side) and factions that are more authoritarian (focussing more on the areas of central control favored by their respective side.) Historically, the left is generally the side favoring, on balance, democratization of power and greater liberty, but that's focussed on breaking power down from wherever it is centralized which isn't always formal government.

by voidz 9y ago

metaphorm 9y ago

at the extremes, both left and right are totalitarian and are nightmarish w.r.t personal liberties. this is sometimes called the "horsheshoe political spectrum" [0] but personally I think that's a misunderstanding of political belief systems. left vs. right is meaningless. the real axis runs between liberation and domination. extreme domination parties (whether nominally capitalist, communist, fascist, or theocratic) are the scary ones that have that bloody track record of holocausts and genocides. 0 - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Horseshoe_theory https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Horseshoe_theory

TheGirondin 9y ago

>I think this is actually totalitarian left You're absolutely right. There is only one side organizing at grassroots level (indicating that these are not isolated occurrences, but rather are coming from the groups shared ideals) across the country to shut down the political speech of the other, violently in many cases, and that is the left.

WaxProlix 9y ago
Sure thing buddy. http://atlantablackstar.com/2017/05/15/white-supremacist-richard-spencer-leads-march-charlottesville-va-reminiscent-kkk-gathering/ http://atlantablackstar.com/2017/05/15/white-supremacist-ric...
- TheGirondin 9y ago
  Thanks for posting, as this one event by the far, far right with a couple dozen people stands in sharp contrast to dozens and dozens of examples involving as many as hundreds of people from the left, and really shows how unequatable they are.
  - knowaveragejoe 9y ago
    This is just the most high profile example in recent memory.
    - TheGirondin 9y ago
      Which doesn't change the reality of what I've said. I even linked to an left-wing incident that happened over the weekend, with an order of magnitude more people. http://college.usatoday.com/2017/05/30/protests-erupt-over-racism-at-evergreen-state-college/ http://college.usatoday.com/2017/05/30/protests-erupt-over-r...
      - knowaveragejoe 9y ago
        Sorry, I was wrong. The stabbing on the bus in Oregon is probably the most high profile example of a xenophobia-motivated killing: http://ktla.com/2017/05/30/portland-man-accused-of-stabbing-killing-2-men-yells-in-court-you-call-it-terrorism-i-call-it-patriotism/ http://ktla.com/2017/05/30/portland-man-accused-of-stabbing-...
metaphorm 9y ago
censorship is favored by any kind of authoritarian extremist group and is independent of left/right (which I perceive as an increasingly meaningless distinction). organized censorship is practiced, historically, by organizations as diverse as the Ayatollah of Iran, the Chinese Communist Party, the NAZI party, and by some microscopic evangelical Church in Arkansas that you've never heard of. Now a certain kind of deranged college professor (and the students they influence) are doing it too. So what is the left and what is the right? the categories we're accustomed to reading about have broken down. it's something else now and its time to acknowledge it.

sharemywin 9y ago

It's economic versus social issues. The "left" is more authoritarian on economic issues. The "right" is more authoritarian on social issues.

TheGirondin 9y ago
Maybe in the past, the left has grown increasingly authoritarian on social issues over the last few years. Just yesterday a mob of left-wing students tried to assault a professor over a social issue. http://college.usatoday.com/2017/05/30/protests-erupt-over-racism-at-evergreen-state-college/ http://college.usatoday.com/2017/05/30/protests-erupt-over-r...
- sharemywin 9y ago
  The alt-left I guess.

dragonwriter 9y ago

> I think this is actually totalitarian left - the right is more about personal liberties etc. Both the left anf the right talk a lot about personal liberties (though they focus on different specific liberties). Both the left and the right have domains where they generally favor government control. And both the left and the right have factions which are more libertarian (focussing more on the areas of personal liberty favored by their respective side) and factions that are more authoritarian (focussing more on the areas of central control favored by their respective side.) Historically, the left is generally the side favoring, on balance, democratization of power and greater liberty, but that's focussed on breaking power down from wherever it is centralized which isn't always formal government.