7 ms·

What is up with the comic villain caricature of conservative ideology that appears further down in this post?

TaylorAlexander 6y ago
The author (who I love!) is a leftist (like me!) and probably some kind of communist (like me). He believes that human lives are more important than property rights. From that perspective, people on the right who do not believe that seem like heartless murderers who care more about profit than the people they depend on for their well being. So to a leftist, many far right conservatives feel a lot like comic book villains! Of course it goes the other way too, but that makes sense to me. Feel free to ask me questions about this ideology if you'd like. You may also find this video worthwhile: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7Bd_H8Cyago https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7Bd_H8Cyago
- bofadeez 6y ago
  The right to own property is an extension of our right to own our own life. We are only obligated to contracts we have voluntarily entered into. You need to address the immorality of using violence to force people to be empathetic. We are not responsible for the lives of others. You have the option at any time to donate 100% of your disposable income to a charity of your choice. You do not have the moral right to violent police enforcement to force people to enter into contracts against their will. These rights are guaranteed by our constitution and your misguided opinions have been discarded decades ago.
  - pestaa 6y ago
    > We are only obligated to contracts we have voluntarily entered into. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Social_contract https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Social_contract
    - bofadeez 6y ago
      The concept of a social contract is axiomatically immoral as it relies on the use of involuntary compulsion and violent police enforcement, in violation of the non-aggression principle. Educate yourself on a world where the non-aggression principle is actually respected on an institutional level: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anarcho-capitalism https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anarcho-capitalism
      - danans 6y ago
        > The right to own property is an extension of our right to own our own life. Not at all. It's a benefit of modern nation states and the contracts they extend to their residents. A monopoly on violence [1] is a fundamental step of the legitimation process of any sovereignty, whether an anarcho-capitalist homestead or a modern nation state. Property rights (including property held in common by the state) are a benefit of the state contract and are enforced by the same monopoly on violence. If you expect your property rights to be protected, you must engage in the contract (via residency and payment of taxes) with an authority that backs them up those rights. Otherwise, you will have a scenario like Afghanistan, with fluid internal sovereignty and where property rights frequently are managed through violence. 1. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monopoly_on_violence https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monopoly_on_violence
        bofadeez 6y ago
        I absolutely 100% agree with that statement. Acting in an immoral fashion that violates the non-aggression principle is a fundamental step toward a "modern nation-state." But it's still fundamentally immoral and operates on the assumption that humans are not entitled to ownership of their own lives. The major difference is that an AC homestead would be voluntary, while a social contract imposed at birth is involuntary. And I've been to Afghanistan and it's a much much more complicated situation than you're describing.
        danans 6y ago
        > But it's still fundamentally immoral and operates on the assumption that humans are not entitled to ownership of their own lives. That's a lovely principle, but it means little without enforcement. How would property rights be enforced in anarcho-capitalist society without a system of property laws, courts to adjudicate them, and law enforcement? > And I've been to Afghanistan and it's a much much more complicated situation than you're describing. Every real-world society is more complicated than the models we use to describe them. These things all exist on multiple spectra. Socialist Northern Europe is not perfectly or fairly distributive of wealth. Some people in Afghanistan have their property rights enforced by the state. But on balance, the enforcement of property rights in a country with a weak state like Afghanistan is lower than in Northern Europe, especially the further you get from the government's seat of power. At least today, a warlord cannot take over a town in Belgium and forcibly take over a section of houses to build a garrison. State enforcement of property rights is the stable foundation on which higher level societal productivity happens. Without it, there are no factories, no secure supply lines, limited commerce and communication. The GDP of most advanced nations would vaporize.
- JumpCrisscross 6y ago
  > to a leftist, many far right conservatives feel a lot like comic book villains Your arguments might carry more weight if you saw those with opposing viewpoints as more than caricatures. What you’re describing as “far right” is a sizeable fraction of America. If your views are, out the door, anathema to them, I’m going to de-prioritise them—they’re politically nonviable. I don’t think your views are nonviable. The language, however, makes the whole package so.
  - ganstyles 6y ago
    > I’m going to de-prioritise trying to understand them—they’re politically no viable. imho lack of political viability should not be sufficient to not prioritize trying to understand something. For example, I don't think ideologies like Anarchism are politically viable, but do think understanding such ideologies is important to forming a solid base of knowledge upon which to base my actual positions.
    - DyslexicAtheist 6y ago
      > I don't think ideologies like Anarchism are politically viable why not?
      - ganstyles 6y ago
        I was thinking about the USA specifically, but I think it applies generally that despite some of its interesting tenets, very few people support it. Without at least some critical mass of supporters, ideally at least a plurality, it has no chance of becoming supported enough to place people in office and is thus not politically viable.
    - JumpCrisscross 6y ago
      > I don't think ideologies like Anarchism are politically viable, but do think understanding such ideologies is important De-prioritise doesn't mean ignore. It just means it goes down the list. If something has a chance of appealing to the population, it could merit working on. That makes it a priority to understand. Non-viable politics are fine. They move the Overton window. And they can, as you say, inform broader philosophies. But if something has a chance of being viable, it benefits from more-compassionate framing.
- valuearb 6y ago
  His actual statement was that human rights are more important than property rights, yet property rights are a human right. So it’s a nonsensical straw horse that actually just helps establish that the terms “right” and “left” are meaningless and only meant to divide and demonize people.
  - cjhopman 6y ago
    From the article: Steven Brust: "Ask what's more important, human rights, or property rights. If they say property rights are a human right, they're on the right."
    - valuearb 6y ago
      Believing you should have the right to own possessions, a home or a business doesn’t put you on the right, it places you firmly in the vast center.
      - manquer 6y ago
        It is all relative to you I guess, for a true idealogical communist any individual property right is as right as it gets, while people who generally are from western style capitalist economies, individual property right is probably centre or maybe even centre left and similar rights to corporate entities may be considered centre right .
      - Lukeas14 6y ago
        He's not arguing whether or not we should have property rights. The question is which is more important, property rights or human rights. There are times when these rights clash and we as a society have to pick one or the other. For example, if a huge natural disaster (like hurricane Katrina) wipes out the livelihood of millions of people and the government hasn't provided aid yet. Should a person who is hungry and lost everything be able to go inside a store and take food? He has a human right to live but that store also has property rights over their products. Some (not all) conservatives would argue that the hungry person should be prosecuted for stealing, while most people on the left would argue the opposite.
- lucaspm98 6y ago
  That's a close minded way to start a discussion about politics that has become all too common. I think it's important to assume everyone is coming from a place of good intentions until proven otherwise. As someone whose beliefs most closely align as libertarian-right I'm now much more unlikely to seriously consider what you're saying after you characterize 10-50% of Americans (depending on definitions) as heartless murderers and comic book villains.
  - Dahoon 6y ago
    A lot of people do see Americans (based on US politics) as "heartless murderers and comic book villains" though.
- cat199 6y ago
  You state: "and probably some kind of communist (like me)" The page also quotes: " Then came the definition from Corey Robin's "The Reactionary Mind": to be on the right is to believe that some of us were ordained to rule and the rest to be ruled over, and that the world is only right when the correct rulers are enthroned. " as well as: "Today, I learned a new definition, courtesy of John Holbo: "Conservatism says the law protects in-group members without binding them; while binding out-group members, not protecting them." " Not sure which kind of communist you are proposing, but these definitions both would both make any form of vanguardist ideology (inc. marxism, anarcho communism, etc) or ends-justify-the-means ideology inherently 'right'.
  - kordlessagain 6y ago
    > Doctorow began selling fiction when he was 17 years old The point about the "ordained to rule" and choice to be "ruled over" reminded me of Julian Jaynes' The Origin of Consciousness in the Breakdown of the Bicameral Mind
  - TaylorAlexander 6y ago
    Anarcho communism is not a vanguardist ideology... Marxist analysis is useful without any notion of a vanguard party, which I feel was a failed idea. Of course there have always been anarchists and marxists who disagreed with the vanguard party idea, but they were suppressed by the authoritarians and famously executed in many cases. I don't think Cory Doctorow is a vanguardist and neither am I. We often view those on the right as beliving they should rule over us through acquisition of wealth and subsequent control of the means of production. I don't think it makes sense for billionaires to control our world, which I view as a form of "rule". When I say I am an anarcho communist, I mean things like: we should make more of the world like wikipedia, and roll back draconian intellectual property restrictions. I do not think I should run an army full of people with guns to control your town. Nor does Doctrow from what I know. I have seen people on leftist subreddits who do think that, but then that's internet comments for you.
    - historicalweave 6y ago
      Aren't you then the ones making the rules? "Rolling back draconian intellectual property laws" means the world has to accept your vision of intellectual property, and I assume that's true of whatever other changes you envision as well. What if people disagree with your vision?
- botwriter 6y ago
  But communism doesn't care about human lives... You could always talk to my ex landlords wife if you like, she will be dead silent if kids walk past because thanks to communism saying the wrong thing when kids were around got you murdered (Cambodia)
- gwright 6y ago
  > He believes that human lives are more important than property rights. How do you justify creating a total ordering of rights in this way? And why do you think that there is no intersection between these two sets: "human rights" and "property rights"?
  - deleted 6y ago
    [deleted]
  - TaylorAlexander 6y ago
    I suppose it's more of a general line of thought, not a hard "total ordering". "Property rights" is also a broad term, and perhaps equally important are "property norms". Also I find this theoretical stuff hard to explain in detail. I am a full time engineer, but I'd like to spend more time reading theory so I could easily and concisely explain all of this stuff in my own writing and when I talk with others. My explanation is not super important though, because I do not believe I should impose my beliefs on you. There are however places where our beliefs (and the law) intersect. For example if you start a company that makes something really useful, but you include a little software lock or a hardware ID circuit that locks down the products ability, do I have the "right" to bypass your lock? Do you have the right to send police in to my town and stop me from using the item I unlocked? That is the domain where our ideas intersect. Where you and I have reason to care about each other's beliefs. In that case I should get better at explaining my side, and I may want to fight to reduce the laws that give you this control over me. But I am an anarcho communist. I am also a left-libertarian. I think property rights are useful, but I think it is wrong for a huge store of grain to sit full behind a barb wire fence while people starve outside.
    - sk5t 6y ago
      > I think it is wrong for a huge store of grain to sit full behind a barb wire fence while people starve outside If only the world worked by such simplistic rules... take the grain, and thus steal from / starve the farmer or the people who work to distribute grain to market?
      - 6y ago
- deleted 6y ago
  [deleted]
- historicalweave 6y ago
  Historically, far left governments have killed as many people as far right ones, despite their proclaimed love of human rights. Pretty much any closed, ironclad ideology seems to be capable of ending in mass murder.
  - TaylorAlexander 6y ago
    Leftist ideology is not inherently authoritarian, and many authoritarian leftist regimes imprisoned or executed the anti authoritarian lefists in their midst. I am an anti-authoritatian, but there have always been anti-authoritarian leftists. Even Karl Marx had a well known contemporary critic with Peter Kropotkin: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peter_Kropotkin https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peter_Kropotkin So you've made a mistake associating leftist ideology with authoritarianism. There is both authoritarian leftist ideology and non-authoritarian leftist ideology. And then there's Ho Chi Minh of Vietnam. Their country was occupied by the French and later invaded by and viciously attacked by the United States. So they were communist and perhaps emphasized violent revolution, but how else could you gain your freedom from an occupying army? But for a modern, United States-centric anti-authoritarian anarchist communist ideology, look up Communalism by Murray Bookchin. Bookchin was critical of Bernie Sanders in vermont as being too centrist. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Communalism https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Communalism https://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=murray+bookchin https://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=murray+bookchin
    - historicalweave 6y ago
      Right-wing ideology isn't inherently authoritarian either. In fact much of right-wing ideology favors federalism and other forms of decentralization.
  - dang 6y ago
    Please do not take HN threads further into ideological flamewar. We're trying to avoid that here. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
- fooker 6y ago
  I love how certain you are of being right about everything!
  - dang 6y ago
    Please do not take HN threads further into ideological flamewar. That's going the wrong way down a one-way street. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
- dang 6y ago
  Your cheerfulness is refreshing, but please don't take HN threads further on generic ideological tangents. Generic discussion is bad for HN generally (https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&query=by%3Adang%20generic%20discussion&sort=byDate&type=comment https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&que...) and generic ideology is the worst subtype (https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&query=by%3Adang%20generic%20ideolog&sort=byDate&type=comment https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&que...). This is simply not a topic that can be discussed with any nuance or curiosity on a large, public internet forum. A flood of generic comments will inevitably get sucked in, drown out everything else, and soon people will be bashing each other over the head with clubs from the sacks they always keep handy. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
  - TaylorAlexander 6y ago
    Understandable. Sorry about that.
dang 6y ago
Please don't take HN threads on generic ideological tangents. They're all the same (case in point: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23305296 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23305296), therefore tedious, therefore off topic here. https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&query=by%3Adang%20generic%20ideolog&sort=byDate&type=comment https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&que...
- throwawaysea 6y ago
  In this case I wasn’t trying to take it off on a tangent. The linked article literally has a section titled “Mafia logic and conservative ideology”. That’s what I was responding to, since it made little sense to me and seemingly didn’t match the title of this post.
  - dang 6y ago
    I believe you, but importing that into the HN context and starting a new subthread about it amounts to introducing a generic ideological tangent, which is what we don't want here. Not everything in an article needs to make it through the membrane—it's much better to pass on the provocation.
    - throwawaysea 6y ago
      Fair enough, thanks.

The author (who I love!) is a leftist (like me!) and probably some kind of communist (like me). He believes that human lives are more important than property rights. From that perspective, people on the right who do not believe that seem like heartless murderers who care more about profit than the people they depend on for their well being. So to a leftist, many far right conservatives feel a lot like comic book villains! Of course it goes the other way too, but that makes sense to me. Feel free to ask me questions about this ideology if you'd like. You may also find this video worthwhile: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7Bd_H8Cyago https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7Bd_H8Cyago

bofadeez 6y ago
The right to own property is an extension of our right to own our own life. We are only obligated to contracts we have voluntarily entered into. You need to address the immorality of using violence to force people to be empathetic. We are not responsible for the lives of others. You have the option at any time to donate 100% of your disposable income to a charity of your choice. You do not have the moral right to violent police enforcement to force people to enter into contracts against their will. These rights are guaranteed by our constitution and your misguided opinions have been discarded decades ago.
- pestaa 6y ago
  > We are only obligated to contracts we have voluntarily entered into. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Social_contract https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Social_contract
  - bofadeez 6y ago
    The concept of a social contract is axiomatically immoral as it relies on the use of involuntary compulsion and violent police enforcement, in violation of the non-aggression principle. Educate yourself on a world where the non-aggression principle is actually respected on an institutional level: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anarcho-capitalism https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anarcho-capitalism
    - danans 6y ago
      > The right to own property is an extension of our right to own our own life. Not at all. It's a benefit of modern nation states and the contracts they extend to their residents. A monopoly on violence [1] is a fundamental step of the legitimation process of any sovereignty, whether an anarcho-capitalist homestead or a modern nation state. Property rights (including property held in common by the state) are a benefit of the state contract and are enforced by the same monopoly on violence. If you expect your property rights to be protected, you must engage in the contract (via residency and payment of taxes) with an authority that backs them up those rights. Otherwise, you will have a scenario like Afghanistan, with fluid internal sovereignty and where property rights frequently are managed through violence. 1. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monopoly_on_violence https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monopoly_on_violence
      - bofadeez 6y ago
        I absolutely 100% agree with that statement. Acting in an immoral fashion that violates the non-aggression principle is a fundamental step toward a "modern nation-state." But it's still fundamentally immoral and operates on the assumption that humans are not entitled to ownership of their own lives. The major difference is that an AC homestead would be voluntary, while a social contract imposed at birth is involuntary. And I've been to Afghanistan and it's a much much more complicated situation than you're describing.
        danans 6y ago
        > But it's still fundamentally immoral and operates on the assumption that humans are not entitled to ownership of their own lives. That's a lovely principle, but it means little without enforcement. How would property rights be enforced in anarcho-capitalist society without a system of property laws, courts to adjudicate them, and law enforcement? > And I've been to Afghanistan and it's a much much more complicated situation than you're describing. Every real-world society is more complicated than the models we use to describe them. These things all exist on multiple spectra. Socialist Northern Europe is not perfectly or fairly distributive of wealth. Some people in Afghanistan have their property rights enforced by the state. But on balance, the enforcement of property rights in a country with a weak state like Afghanistan is lower than in Northern Europe, especially the further you get from the government's seat of power. At least today, a warlord cannot take over a town in Belgium and forcibly take over a section of houses to build a garrison. State enforcement of property rights is the stable foundation on which higher level societal productivity happens. Without it, there are no factories, no secure supply lines, limited commerce and communication. The GDP of most advanced nations would vaporize.
JumpCrisscross 6y ago
> to a leftist, many far right conservatives feel a lot like comic book villains Your arguments might carry more weight if you saw those with opposing viewpoints as more than caricatures. What you’re describing as “far right” is a sizeable fraction of America. If your views are, out the door, anathema to them, I’m going to de-prioritise them—they’re politically nonviable. I don’t think your views are nonviable. The language, however, makes the whole package so.
- ganstyles 6y ago
  > I’m going to de-prioritise trying to understand them—they’re politically no viable. imho lack of political viability should not be sufficient to not prioritize trying to understand something. For example, I don't think ideologies like Anarchism are politically viable, but do think understanding such ideologies is important to forming a solid base of knowledge upon which to base my actual positions.
  - DyslexicAtheist 6y ago
    > I don't think ideologies like Anarchism are politically viable why not?
    - ganstyles 6y ago
      I was thinking about the USA specifically, but I think it applies generally that despite some of its interesting tenets, very few people support it. Without at least some critical mass of supporters, ideally at least a plurality, it has no chance of becoming supported enough to place people in office and is thus not politically viable.
  - JumpCrisscross 6y ago
    > I don't think ideologies like Anarchism are politically viable, but do think understanding such ideologies is important De-prioritise doesn't mean ignore. It just means it goes down the list. If something has a chance of appealing to the population, it could merit working on. That makes it a priority to understand. Non-viable politics are fine. They move the Overton window. And they can, as you say, inform broader philosophies. But if something has a chance of being viable, it benefits from more-compassionate framing.
valuearb 6y ago
His actual statement was that human rights are more important than property rights, yet property rights are a human right. So it’s a nonsensical straw horse that actually just helps establish that the terms “right” and “left” are meaningless and only meant to divide and demonize people.
- cjhopman 6y ago
  From the article: Steven Brust: "Ask what's more important, human rights, or property rights. If they say property rights are a human right, they're on the right."
  - valuearb 6y ago
    Believing you should have the right to own possessions, a home or a business doesn’t put you on the right, it places you firmly in the vast center.
    - manquer 6y ago
      It is all relative to you I guess, for a true idealogical communist any individual property right is as right as it gets, while people who generally are from western style capitalist economies, individual property right is probably centre or maybe even centre left and similar rights to corporate entities may be considered centre right .
    - Lukeas14 6y ago
      He's not arguing whether or not we should have property rights. The question is which is more important, property rights or human rights. There are times when these rights clash and we as a society have to pick one or the other. For example, if a huge natural disaster (like hurricane Katrina) wipes out the livelihood of millions of people and the government hasn't provided aid yet. Should a person who is hungry and lost everything be able to go inside a store and take food? He has a human right to live but that store also has property rights over their products. Some (not all) conservatives would argue that the hungry person should be prosecuted for stealing, while most people on the left would argue the opposite.
lucaspm98 6y ago
That's a close minded way to start a discussion about politics that has become all too common. I think it's important to assume everyone is coming from a place of good intentions until proven otherwise. As someone whose beliefs most closely align as libertarian-right I'm now much more unlikely to seriously consider what you're saying after you characterize 10-50% of Americans (depending on definitions) as heartless murderers and comic book villains.
- Dahoon 6y ago
  A lot of people do see Americans (based on US politics) as "heartless murderers and comic book villains" though.
cat199 6y ago
You state: "and probably some kind of communist (like me)" The page also quotes: " Then came the definition from Corey Robin's "The Reactionary Mind": to be on the right is to believe that some of us were ordained to rule and the rest to be ruled over, and that the world is only right when the correct rulers are enthroned. " as well as: "Today, I learned a new definition, courtesy of John Holbo: "Conservatism says the law protects in-group members without binding them; while binding out-group members, not protecting them." " Not sure which kind of communist you are proposing, but these definitions both would both make any form of vanguardist ideology (inc. marxism, anarcho communism, etc) or ends-justify-the-means ideology inherently 'right'.
- kordlessagain 6y ago
  > Doctorow began selling fiction when he was 17 years old The point about the "ordained to rule" and choice to be "ruled over" reminded me of Julian Jaynes' The Origin of Consciousness in the Breakdown of the Bicameral Mind
- TaylorAlexander 6y ago
  Anarcho communism is not a vanguardist ideology... Marxist analysis is useful without any notion of a vanguard party, which I feel was a failed idea. Of course there have always been anarchists and marxists who disagreed with the vanguard party idea, but they were suppressed by the authoritarians and famously executed in many cases. I don't think Cory Doctorow is a vanguardist and neither am I. We often view those on the right as beliving they should rule over us through acquisition of wealth and subsequent control of the means of production. I don't think it makes sense for billionaires to control our world, which I view as a form of "rule". When I say I am an anarcho communist, I mean things like: we should make more of the world like wikipedia, and roll back draconian intellectual property restrictions. I do not think I should run an army full of people with guns to control your town. Nor does Doctrow from what I know. I have seen people on leftist subreddits who do think that, but then that's internet comments for you.
  - historicalweave 6y ago
    Aren't you then the ones making the rules? "Rolling back draconian intellectual property laws" means the world has to accept your vision of intellectual property, and I assume that's true of whatever other changes you envision as well. What if people disagree with your vision?
botwriter 6y ago
But communism doesn't care about human lives... You could always talk to my ex landlords wife if you like, she will be dead silent if kids walk past because thanks to communism saying the wrong thing when kids were around got you murdered (Cambodia)
gwright 6y ago
> He believes that human lives are more important than property rights. How do you justify creating a total ordering of rights in this way? And why do you think that there is no intersection between these two sets: "human rights" and "property rights"?
- deleted 6y ago
  [deleted]
- TaylorAlexander 6y ago
  I suppose it's more of a general line of thought, not a hard "total ordering". "Property rights" is also a broad term, and perhaps equally important are "property norms". Also I find this theoretical stuff hard to explain in detail. I am a full time engineer, but I'd like to spend more time reading theory so I could easily and concisely explain all of this stuff in my own writing and when I talk with others. My explanation is not super important though, because I do not believe I should impose my beliefs on you. There are however places where our beliefs (and the law) intersect. For example if you start a company that makes something really useful, but you include a little software lock or a hardware ID circuit that locks down the products ability, do I have the "right" to bypass your lock? Do you have the right to send police in to my town and stop me from using the item I unlocked? That is the domain where our ideas intersect. Where you and I have reason to care about each other's beliefs. In that case I should get better at explaining my side, and I may want to fight to reduce the laws that give you this control over me. But I am an anarcho communist. I am also a left-libertarian. I think property rights are useful, but I think it is wrong for a huge store of grain to sit full behind a barb wire fence while people starve outside.
  - sk5t 6y ago
    > I think it is wrong for a huge store of grain to sit full behind a barb wire fence while people starve outside If only the world worked by such simplistic rules... take the grain, and thus steal from / starve the farmer or the people who work to distribute grain to market?
    - 6y ago
deleted 6y ago
[deleted]
historicalweave 6y ago
Historically, far left governments have killed as many people as far right ones, despite their proclaimed love of human rights. Pretty much any closed, ironclad ideology seems to be capable of ending in mass murder.
- TaylorAlexander 6y ago
  Leftist ideology is not inherently authoritarian, and many authoritarian leftist regimes imprisoned or executed the anti authoritarian lefists in their midst. I am an anti-authoritatian, but there have always been anti-authoritarian leftists. Even Karl Marx had a well known contemporary critic with Peter Kropotkin: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peter_Kropotkin https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peter_Kropotkin So you've made a mistake associating leftist ideology with authoritarianism. There is both authoritarian leftist ideology and non-authoritarian leftist ideology. And then there's Ho Chi Minh of Vietnam. Their country was occupied by the French and later invaded by and viciously attacked by the United States. So they were communist and perhaps emphasized violent revolution, but how else could you gain your freedom from an occupying army? But for a modern, United States-centric anti-authoritarian anarchist communist ideology, look up Communalism by Murray Bookchin. Bookchin was critical of Bernie Sanders in vermont as being too centrist. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Communalism https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Communalism https://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=murray+bookchin https://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=murray+bookchin
  - historicalweave 6y ago
    Right-wing ideology isn't inherently authoritarian either. In fact much of right-wing ideology favors federalism and other forms of decentralization.
- dang 6y ago
  Please do not take HN threads further into ideological flamewar. We're trying to avoid that here. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
fooker 6y ago
I love how certain you are of being right about everything!
- dang 6y ago
  Please do not take HN threads further into ideological flamewar. That's going the wrong way down a one-way street. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
dang 6y ago
Your cheerfulness is refreshing, but please don't take HN threads further on generic ideological tangents. Generic discussion is bad for HN generally (https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&query=by%3Adang%20generic%20discussion&sort=byDate&type=comment https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&que...) and generic ideology is the worst subtype (https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&query=by%3Adang%20generic%20ideolog&sort=byDate&type=comment https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&que...). This is simply not a topic that can be discussed with any nuance or curiosity on a large, public internet forum. A flood of generic comments will inevitably get sucked in, drown out everything else, and soon people will be bashing each other over the head with clubs from the sacks they always keep handy. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
- TaylorAlexander 6y ago
  Understandable. Sorry about that.

dang 6y ago

Please don't take HN threads on generic ideological tangents. They're all the same (case in point: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23305296 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23305296), therefore tedious, therefore off topic here. https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&query=by%3Adang%20generic%20ideolog&sort=byDate&type=comment https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&que...

throwawaysea 6y ago
In this case I wasn’t trying to take it off on a tangent. The linked article literally has a section titled “Mafia logic and conservative ideology”. That’s what I was responding to, since it made little sense to me and seemingly didn’t match the title of this post.
- dang 6y ago
  I believe you, but importing that into the HN context and starting a new subthread about it amounts to introducing a generic ideological tangent, which is what we don't want here. Not everything in an article needs to make it through the membrane—it's much better to pass on the provocation.
  - throwawaysea 6y ago
    Fair enough, thanks.