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I think that historically law enforcement and intelligence agencies are strongly leaning to the right. They use the power granted by citizens to do their jobs a

by kartan 8y ago

I think that historically law enforcement and intelligence agencies are strongly leaning to the right. They use the power granted by citizens to do their jobs and use it to pursue their personal political agendas. "The activist, Kate Wilson, had a two-year intimate relationship with Mark Kennedy, who was known to her as Mark Stone. She only found out in 2010 that he had been an undercover officer tasked with infiltrating environmental protest groups." https://edition.cnn.com/2018/09/21/uk/uk-police-spy-activist-relationship-intl/index.html https://edition.cnn.com/2018/09/21/uk/uk-police-spy-activist... Instead of investigating power corruption, the relationship between far-right groups and Russia, etc. UK thinks that infiltrating "environmental groups" and using government resources to allow an spy to have sex with an activist is more important, because "environmental activists" are bad... Law enforcement and intelligence agencies around the world have a problem with lack of professionalism were personal political agendas triumph doing the duty that they have been tasked to do. That is why they are so inefficient and things like the Russian meddling with Brexit and the USA elections happen.

raxxorrax 8y ago
And if there are no consequences, they will continue to do so. Surveillance is no partisan issue anymore. With the absence of further evidence, I believe the Russian influence, not by the lack of trying, is limited in scope. Brexit and US elections have more believable domestic policy explanations. On the contrary, I think these stories serve as justification to fortify intelligence powers. Like you said, I believe it has been historically a domain further to the right. Currently, it is not a partisan issue anymore. We even have testimony that at least to some degree federal agencies in the US were fiercely situated in other political camps. This is of course the fundamental argument for limiting powers of any intelligence agency.
hevi_jos 8y ago
How is spying something to be attributed to the right? The most powerful spying organizations of the world,the KGB or the Stasi(or the Chinese entire structure) has been historically from the left. We are talking about secret services that did(are) monitor(ing) all your conversations, all the time, and have the power to fire you from your job, socially isolate you or just jail or kill you. What happened to the rivals of current president of China? That made him de facto dictator for life. We can extract some information about what you write that you are leftist so Left equals good, Right equals bad. Hence if things get wrong, it is going to the right. The fact is that the world is becoming more authoritarian again. People in power want more power. In places like Spain people in power are from the left. The people in the US and UK are adult enough to have decided to vote Brexit and Trump on their own. There were lots of interest in the table. If you talk about the Russia influence you should talk about the opposite influence too(the financial industry and media extremely in favor of Hillary or anti-Brexit) which vastly exceeded any other by far. I was in the UK at the time. The US admitted officially that it spent 6.000 million dollars interfering in Ukraine alone. Imagine how much they have spent trying to interfere in Russia through ONGs, media support...US has so much GDP compared to Russia, what Russia spent in adds was extremely small.
- ben_w 8y ago
  Right- and left-wing are poor overall predictors of behaviour, at least when comparing two different nations or two different eras of the same nation, as they are essentially seating arrangement. Instead, authority versus liberty is one axis, while a different axis might be free market versus central planning economics, and a third could be if power is mainly decided by democracy or by wealth.
  - JohnStrangeII 8y ago
    There is another, even more important axis that could be called center versus extreme. (Or maybe pragmatism versus idealism, although this is more easily misunderstood.) You can have a certain political opinion but in the end believe that in politics it is inevitable to make compromises and being moderate and realistic with your goals, and that you have to be able to agree to disagree sometimes. That's center. Others wish for radical disruptive changes and revolutions towards their political goals and despise any compromises. These are extreme. I believe that there are good reasons to reject extremism of any form and any political colour, even if you agree with the political direction, so to say. Take for example individual anarchism. Even if you are for maximizing individual freedom and civil liberty (= a liberal in the European sense), you can reject individual anarchism because it is a way too extreme, idealistic and overall unrealistic position. As a political centrist I believe the same about every other political position. In my experience radicals and fanatics are too disconnected from reality, and as a run-off-the-mill left wing liberal (in the European sense) I'd rather discuss politics with a moderate right wing conservative than with some radical far right or far left nutcase.
    - bachbach 8y ago
      But you're borrowers! The basic policy of every political faction used to be an extremist position. Free markets were a radical idea (the Kings and Queens of Europe favoured mercantilism), readopting an interpretation of Greek democracy from 2500 years ago was a revolutionary idea and everything to do with political liberalism was definitely considered by the monarchy and aristocracy to be extreme.
liftbigweights 8y ago
> I think that historically law enforcement and intelligence agencies are strongly leaning to the right. Lots of law enforcement lean left due to being in unions and government protections. Even in the intelligence community, a lot lean left. I think you are confusing right with authoritarism. Law enforcement and the intelligence community lean to authoritarism. There are authoritarian left and authoritarian right. Both extremes hate freedom and love control. The worst form of authoritarianism occurred when extremist left ( socialists ) joined extremist right ( nationalists ) and created nazi germany. > That is why they are so inefficient and things like the Russian meddling with Brexit and the USA elections happen. So you want intelligence agencies to tell the people how to vote? They do that already. And if they are rightists as you claim, wouldn't you want them to be less effective? Your comment contradicts itself.

by kartan 8y ago

raxxorrax 8y ago

And if there are no consequences, they will continue to do so. Surveillance is no partisan issue anymore. With the absence of further evidence, I believe the Russian influence, not by the lack of trying, is limited in scope. Brexit and US elections have more believable domestic policy explanations. On the contrary, I think these stories serve as justification to fortify intelligence powers. Like you said, I believe it has been historically a domain further to the right. Currently, it is not a partisan issue anymore. We even have testimony that at least to some degree federal agencies in the US were fiercely situated in other political camps. This is of course the fundamental argument for limiting powers of any intelligence agency.

hevi_jos 8y ago

How is spying something to be attributed to the right? The most powerful spying organizations of the world,the KGB or the Stasi(or the Chinese entire structure) has been historically from the left. We are talking about secret services that did(are) monitor(ing) all your conversations, all the time, and have the power to fire you from your job, socially isolate you or just jail or kill you. What happened to the rivals of current president of China? That made him de facto dictator for life. We can extract some information about what you write that you are leftist so Left equals good, Right equals bad. Hence if things get wrong, it is going to the right. The fact is that the world is becoming more authoritarian again. People in power want more power. In places like Spain people in power are from the left. The people in the US and UK are adult enough to have decided to vote Brexit and Trump on their own. There were lots of interest in the table. If you talk about the Russia influence you should talk about the opposite influence too(the financial industry and media extremely in favor of Hillary or anti-Brexit) which vastly exceeded any other by far. I was in the UK at the time. The US admitted officially that it spent 6.000 million dollars interfering in Ukraine alone. Imagine how much they have spent trying to interfere in Russia through ONGs, media support...US has so much GDP compared to Russia, what Russia spent in adds was extremely small.

ben_w 8y ago
Right- and left-wing are poor overall predictors of behaviour, at least when comparing two different nations or two different eras of the same nation, as they are essentially seating arrangement. Instead, authority versus liberty is one axis, while a different axis might be free market versus central planning economics, and a third could be if power is mainly decided by democracy or by wealth.
- JohnStrangeII 8y ago
  There is another, even more important axis that could be called center versus extreme. (Or maybe pragmatism versus idealism, although this is more easily misunderstood.) You can have a certain political opinion but in the end believe that in politics it is inevitable to make compromises and being moderate and realistic with your goals, and that you have to be able to agree to disagree sometimes. That's center. Others wish for radical disruptive changes and revolutions towards their political goals and despise any compromises. These are extreme. I believe that there are good reasons to reject extremism of any form and any political colour, even if you agree with the political direction, so to say. Take for example individual anarchism. Even if you are for maximizing individual freedom and civil liberty (= a liberal in the European sense), you can reject individual anarchism because it is a way too extreme, idealistic and overall unrealistic position. As a political centrist I believe the same about every other political position. In my experience radicals and fanatics are too disconnected from reality, and as a run-off-the-mill left wing liberal (in the European sense) I'd rather discuss politics with a moderate right wing conservative than with some radical far right or far left nutcase.
  - bachbach 8y ago
    But you're borrowers! The basic policy of every political faction used to be an extremist position. Free markets were a radical idea (the Kings and Queens of Europe favoured mercantilism), readopting an interpretation of Greek democracy from 2500 years ago was a revolutionary idea and everything to do with political liberalism was definitely considered by the monarchy and aristocracy to be extreme.

liftbigweights 8y ago

> I think that historically law enforcement and intelligence agencies are strongly leaning to the right. Lots of law enforcement lean left due to being in unions and government protections. Even in the intelligence community, a lot lean left. I think you are confusing right with authoritarism. Law enforcement and the intelligence community lean to authoritarism. There are authoritarian left and authoritarian right. Both extremes hate freedom and love control. The worst form of authoritarianism occurred when extremist left ( socialists ) joined extremist right ( nationalists ) and created nazi germany. > That is why they are so inefficient and things like the Russian meddling with Brexit and the USA elections happen. So you want intelligence agencies to tell the people how to vote? They do that already. And if they are rightists as you claim, wouldn't you want them to be less effective? Your comment contradicts itself.