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There aren't any far left countries in Europe, and haven't been for nearly 30 years now.

by sdwa 8y ago

agsdfgsd 8y ago
"Left-wing politics supports social equality and egalitarianism, often in opposition to social hierarchy" From wikipedia. Please explain to me how Germany or France could be any further left than they currently are. How much harder could the French government support equality and oppose hierarchy? By definition, a state that is as far into the policies of left wing politics as possible is a far-left state.
- Ragnarork 8y ago
  Funny you say that as the party currently holding power in France is center-right relatively to the political landscape in the country. Maybe your ideas of what's right, left, and far-right/left might not be as accurate as you think they are. Also far-left and left are obviously different no matter the baseline, so conflating the two is pretty simplistic (and wrong).
  - agsdfgsd 8y ago
    Funny that you completely ignore my simple query and instead repeat two fallacies that have already been addressed. I am using the definition of left wing given by wikipedia. You can argue that is wrong if you like, but pretending it is me that is uniquely wrong is silly. And I did not conflate far left and left at any point in any way. I stated very clearly that far left is taking the left wing position to its extreme, and then gave the wikipedia definition of left wing, which is what needs to be taken to extreme to be "far left". Lets look at the reality of France. The people of France are in open revolt against the government over its left wing policy. The people are clearly to the right of the ruling class. That doesn't sound very center right does it? Just because the parties in France are all far left, doesn't mean the ruling party is "center right". Just because the political parties are #3200FF, #3400FF, #3000FF and #3600FF doesn't make #3600FF "redish purple". They are all blue.
    - shaki-dora 8y ago
      I’m giving up, this guy is just trolling.
- ben_w 8y ago
  30 years ago the bit of Berlin that I currently live in was literally — not metaphorically, not boogeyman scaremongering, not playground insults — Communist.
  - agsdfgsd 8y ago
    Yes it was. But was it further left than it is now? I think you are confusing the methods used to achieve a goal with the degree of support for that goal. Communism is authoritarian, and far-left. Modern "liberal democracy" pretenders are far-left and less authoritarian. They want the same complete equality, they just rely more on manipulation and deception than direct violence to get there. Saying they are not far left because they don't use the same tactics to achieve the goal is like saying Gandhi was only moderately in support of independence. He was as far to the independence side of the independence/colonialism debate as you could get, he just wouldn't use violence to try to achieve that goal.
- shaki-dora 8y ago
  Funny you should mention it! There are currently wide-spread riots in France protesting a rise in fuel taxes as unaffordable for the lower class. And, quite obviously, it’s trivial to find “far left policies” that aren’t implemented. None of these countries is communist. Abolishing private property would seem to be a far-left thing to do, no?
  - agsdfgsd 8y ago
    >There are currently wide-spread riots in France protesting a rise in fuel taxes as unaffordable for the lower class. So the left wing government says "French people are too wealthy and drive too much so we're going to take their money and give it to people in developing nations to make things more equal", and you present this (and people's disapproval of it) as evidence they are right wing?
    - sctb 8y ago
      If you keep engaging in tedious political flamewars we'll ban the account. Hacker News is not a tedious political flamewar site. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
      - agsdfgsd 8y ago
        Can you please explain more clearly what constitutes a political flamewar? The only definitions of flamewar I can find suggest it means insulting people. I have not done anything of the sort. And I can not find anything in the guidelines that I have not followed. Do you mean just don't ever post anything that may be controversial? You don't ban the people who actually bring up the controversial issues with a left wing bias, often openly insulting to anyone who disagrees. You only ban the people who respond (politely and without insults) with the wrong opinion. If the actual rules include "far-left opinions only" then put that in the written rules so I know and will leave. But if you are going to maintain the pretense that this site is politically neutral and is for "hackers" rather than "hackers whose opinions I agree with", then I will continue to post within the written rules just as I always have.

There aren't any far left countries in Europe, and haven't been for nearly 30 years now.

by sdwa 8y ago

There aren't any far left countries in Europe, and haven't been for nearly 30 years now.

"Left-wing politics supports social equality and egalitarianism, often in opposition to social hierarchy" From wikipedia. Please explain to me how Germany or France could be any further left than they currently are. How much harder could the French government support equality and oppose hierarchy? By definition, a state that is as far into the policies of left wing politics as possible is a far-left state.

Ragnarork 8y ago
Funny you say that as the party currently holding power in France is center-right relatively to the political landscape in the country. Maybe your ideas of what's right, left, and far-right/left might not be as accurate as you think they are. Also far-left and left are obviously different no matter the baseline, so conflating the two is pretty simplistic (and wrong).
- agsdfgsd 8y ago
  Funny that you completely ignore my simple query and instead repeat two fallacies that have already been addressed. I am using the definition of left wing given by wikipedia. You can argue that is wrong if you like, but pretending it is me that is uniquely wrong is silly. And I did not conflate far left and left at any point in any way. I stated very clearly that far left is taking the left wing position to its extreme, and then gave the wikipedia definition of left wing, which is what needs to be taken to extreme to be "far left". Lets look at the reality of France. The people of France are in open revolt against the government over its left wing policy. The people are clearly to the right of the ruling class. That doesn't sound very center right does it? Just because the parties in France are all far left, doesn't mean the ruling party is "center right". Just because the political parties are #3200FF, #3400FF, #3000FF and #3600FF doesn't make #3600FF "redish purple". They are all blue.
  - shaki-dora 8y ago
    I’m giving up, this guy is just trolling.
ben_w 8y ago
30 years ago the bit of Berlin that I currently live in was literally — not metaphorically, not boogeyman scaremongering, not playground insults — Communist.
- agsdfgsd 8y ago
  Yes it was. But was it further left than it is now? I think you are confusing the methods used to achieve a goal with the degree of support for that goal. Communism is authoritarian, and far-left. Modern "liberal democracy" pretenders are far-left and less authoritarian. They want the same complete equality, they just rely more on manipulation and deception than direct violence to get there. Saying they are not far left because they don't use the same tactics to achieve the goal is like saying Gandhi was only moderately in support of independence. He was as far to the independence side of the independence/colonialism debate as you could get, he just wouldn't use violence to try to achieve that goal.
shaki-dora 8y ago
Funny you should mention it! There are currently wide-spread riots in France protesting a rise in fuel taxes as unaffordable for the lower class. And, quite obviously, it’s trivial to find “far left policies” that aren’t implemented. None of these countries is communist. Abolishing private property would seem to be a far-left thing to do, no?
- agsdfgsd 8y ago
  >There are currently wide-spread riots in France protesting a rise in fuel taxes as unaffordable for the lower class. So the left wing government says "French people are too wealthy and drive too much so we're going to take their money and give it to people in developing nations to make things more equal", and you present this (and people's disapproval of it) as evidence they are right wing?
  - sctb 8y ago
    If you keep engaging in tedious political flamewars we'll ban the account. Hacker News is not a tedious political flamewar site. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
    - agsdfgsd 8y ago
      Can you please explain more clearly what constitutes a political flamewar? The only definitions of flamewar I can find suggest it means insulting people. I have not done anything of the sort. And I can not find anything in the guidelines that I have not followed. Do you mean just don't ever post anything that may be controversial? You don't ban the people who actually bring up the controversial issues with a left wing bias, often openly insulting to anyone who disagrees. You only ban the people who respond (politely and without insults) with the wrong opinion. If the actual rules include "far-left opinions only" then put that in the written rules so I know and will leave. But if you are going to maintain the pretense that this site is politically neutral and is for "hackers" rather than "hackers whose opinions I agree with", then I will continue to post within the written rules just as I always have.