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It' funny to me that both sides of american politics would claim they agree with this while saying it's the other side who wants to divide people and they are b

by anm89 6y ago

It' funny to me that both sides of american politics would claim they agree with this while saying it's the other side who wants to divide people and they are both right. The left wants to include all of the traditionally divided groups on the surface but want's to divide those groups on new terms, gender, class, politics themselves(if you aren't with us you are against us) The right wants interpersonal solidarity (we can accept people individually as long as they let me be) but still likes the nationalistic and anti immigrant rhetoric. They both would end up back at some kind highly restrictive, facist like end point if left unchecked in my opinion. The right causes more damage in the short term in my opinion, things like immigrant detention camps, civil liberties abuses through the police courts and prisons. The left scares me more in the long run because unlike the right, they believe that they hold the correct pure set of ideas(many subgroups in the left think this although the left as a whole can't agree on what the pure set of ideas is) and are much more willing to claim the ends justify the means for any given topic and claim the rules don't apply to them (look at things like the CHOP as an example). Most of my slightly left of democrat friends if really pressed to define what they support end up supporting the violent seizure of assets from groups they feel like have to much (IE an armed populist revolution, the irony being it's the other side who has all the guns) I know this isn't the place for any of this but this stuff bothers me recently and I hate how if you don't pick a side you are always the bad guy.

bluntfang 6y ago
If you're talking about American democrats and republicans, it's better to say "the far right" and "the not as far right". AFAIK, US politics does not have a "left" that has any power.
- anm89 6y ago
  Very strongly disagree. This again is a thing which both sides would claim equally. The right would make the same claim in terms of the left holding all of the power and how their party has been diluted and forced left. You are just saying you fall left of the equilibrium point of the democratic party.
  - 1-more 6y ago
    There is not a major political party in the US that advocates for an employment guarantee, banning private property, or withdrawing all armed forces from around the world. These are positions you would expect from a range of left parties in a parliamentary system. There is however a party that wants to let your employer fire you for any reason whatsoever. It's not even close.
    - Chlorus 6y ago
      "There is not a major political party in the US that advocates for an employment guarantee, banning private property, or withdrawing all armed forces from around the world. These are positions you would expect from a range of left parties in a parliamentary system." That's a pretty loose definition of 'major'. Parliamentary systems sound pretty shitty then - keep in mind the Golden Dawn, UKIP, and any one of the perennial "let's deport all the Roma" parties also counts as a major political party under your definition.
    - AlexTWithBeard 6y ago
      > banning private property, or withdrawing all armed forces from around the world US democratic party is not a flock of angels... but they're certainly not idiots.
      - rtx 6y ago
        Maybe just start by not protecting war criminals.
      - groby_b 6y ago
        This has of course nothing to do with the original question, where they fall on the spectrum of political opinions. The democrats are roughly center-right when you look at it in comparison to major countries across the world. See e.g. https://qz.com/1748903/how-2020-us-democratic-candidates-compare-to-global-politicians/ https://qz.com/1748903/how-2020-us-democratic-candidates-com...
        6y ago
- walrus01 6y ago
  The vast majority of US democrats in the house and senate, if they were in Canada, would be members of the Conservative party.
  - rtx 6y ago
    Do Conservative Canadian politicians like to bomb other countries where they have no business.
TeaDrunk 6y ago
> The left wants to include all of the traditionally divided groups on the surface but want's to divide those groups on new terms, gender, class, politics themselves(if you aren't with us you are against us) I actually disagree in this portrayal of leftist politics. A lot of these labels are people embracing themselves and actually acknowledging who they are and who others are and that’s fine. Being gay, trans, a person of color, disabled, etc. is acknowledged and embraced in leftist politics. I rarely see this sort of acknowledgement and celebration outside of a leftist worldview or a leftist pandering.
- rbecker 6y ago
  "Embraced": https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/It%27s_okay_to_be_white#Reaction https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/It%27s_okay_to_be_white#Reacti... White lives don’t matter. As white lives: https://www.theguardian.com/education/2020/jun/25/abolish-whiteness-academic-calls-for-cambridge-support https://www.theguardian.com/education/2020/jun/25/abolish-wh...
- anm89 6y ago
  Sure, I mean the nazis were embracing their shared arayan heritage. Choosing some innate quality you can't change as a focus of your politics is inherently divisive, the fact that it is empowering to some sub groups misses the point.
  - TeaDrunk 6y ago
    That's precisely it, the nazis were embracing one singular shared heritage and killing people who didn't fall into it. This is precisely the opposite of the lefitst viewpoints, where you can announce your differences on your twitter bio as your identity and people are expected to acknowledge and celebrate them. "Afro-latina they/them autistic" and other announcements are pretty common along these lines are pretty common in a way I don't see outside of leftist circles.
deleted 6y ago
[deleted]
sudosysgen 6y ago
The goal of the left isn't to divide the population on gender and class, it is to make the already existing divisions apparent as that is a pre-requisite to actually fix them. Which is why leftists would call it ...-consciousness, because the goal is just to make people conscious of the already existing differences and then to heal them. The basic idea of modern leftism is that strongest, base distinction in society is class, but that there are other existing divisions that need to be bridged before class itself can be fixed. If it is not readily apparent to you, the US is already divided based on gender, class, and race, and the right party (really both of them) promote policies that would actually increase these gaps. They would ignore them in their rhetoric, but augment them in practice. Whereas the left augments them in their rhetoric, but seeks to minimize them in practice.
- username90 6y ago
  > The goal of the left isn't to divide the population on gender and class, it is to make the already existing divisions apparent as that is a pre-requisite to actually fix them. Republicans are officially against racism, pro black etc. So look at what people do, not what they say.
  - sudosysgen 6y ago
    Sure. Then look at what the left actually does, and tell me how it makes racial, class, and gender divisions worse. The democrats in the US don't qualify as leftists, as I stated above.
    - username90 6y ago
      USA really need a political party that isn't 50% lawyers. No other country has such low diversity among politician backgrounds to my knowledge.
      - sudosysgen 6y ago
        I agree. I think some Islamic theocracies have around the same amount of diversity, though :P Though, the wave of Justice Democrats coming from working class background such as nurses and so on is encouraging
jhpriestley 6y ago
It's like history repeats itself. In Weimar Germany you had the fascists who wanted to persecute and scapegoat minorities and immigrants, but then the far left was also super intolerant of the fascists and actually killed some of them in street brawls. The truly wise group were the conservatives who were repulsed by both sides but willing to work with the fascists.
atomi 6y ago
For some historical perspective, generally, populist revolutions throughout history, especially in the West, have been leftist, the French Revolution, American Revolution, Mexican Revolution. Right wing revolutions tend to curtail rights like the Iranian Revolution. And the all time greatest threat to the world has been a right wing populist revolution; the rise of Nazi Germany - which thankfully was defeated.
- luckylion 6y ago
  Strange to see the American Revolution called leftist. And it wasn't a revolution in the sense of the French Revolution, of course. It was a province proclaiming independence. The Nazis got elected, they didn't start a revolution. The Russian Revolution is missing.
  - atomi 6y ago
    > The Nazis got elected, they didn't start a revolution. Nazi's killed their political opposition, especially Communists.
    - Chlorus 6y ago
      20th century Communists, of course, were famously tolerant of their opponents.
      - atomi 6y ago
        > between 1933–39, with 30,000 communists executed and 150,000 sent to Nazi concentration camps.
    - luckylion 6y ago
      Do you believe that killing political rivals makes a movement a revolution? Is Assad in Syria running a revolution? The Nazis went wild with murdering everyone they didn't like after they got elected (not that they weren't into violence before, but Hitler's attempt at a revolution failed in '23, Hitler was convicted and went to prison). They got elected on a populist vote, but that's not a revolution. Revolution != getting elected by normal proceedings.
sokoloff 6y ago
> The right causes more damage in the short term in my opinion, things like immigrant detention camps I'm not so sure that immigrant detention camps are specifically a "right" issue. Mandatory detention was initially authorized by Bill Clinton in 1996. It's certainly gotten a lot more media attention (and executive Trumpeting) under the current administration, but the roots are by no means new nor exclusively right, recent media and meme focus aside.
drewcoo 6y ago
Well they convinced you that there are two sides, so they're having some effect on the narrative.
spaetzleesser 6y ago
“It' funny to me that both sides of american politics would claim they agree with this while saying it's the other side who wants to divide people and they are both right” I think this paragraph is spot on. I often like to ask people how they would feel if the “other” side had done/said the same thing “their” side is doing/saying now. Most often it seems people get mad at who does or says something and no matter what it really is. It’s a pretty sad state of affairs and will harm the country more and more. They are already setting up the groundwork for half the population not believing the outcome of the next election which will erode things even further.

by anm89 6y ago

bluntfang 6y ago

If you're talking about American democrats and republicans, it's better to say "the far right" and "the not as far right". AFAIK, US politics does not have a "left" that has any power.

anm89 6y ago
Very strongly disagree. This again is a thing which both sides would claim equally. The right would make the same claim in terms of the left holding all of the power and how their party has been diluted and forced left. You are just saying you fall left of the equilibrium point of the democratic party.
- 1-more 6y ago
  There is not a major political party in the US that advocates for an employment guarantee, banning private property, or withdrawing all armed forces from around the world. These are positions you would expect from a range of left parties in a parliamentary system. There is however a party that wants to let your employer fire you for any reason whatsoever. It's not even close.
  - Chlorus 6y ago
    "There is not a major political party in the US that advocates for an employment guarantee, banning private property, or withdrawing all armed forces from around the world. These are positions you would expect from a range of left parties in a parliamentary system." That's a pretty loose definition of 'major'. Parliamentary systems sound pretty shitty then - keep in mind the Golden Dawn, UKIP, and any one of the perennial "let's deport all the Roma" parties also counts as a major political party under your definition.
  - AlexTWithBeard 6y ago
    > banning private property, or withdrawing all armed forces from around the world US democratic party is not a flock of angels... but they're certainly not idiots.
    - rtx 6y ago
      Maybe just start by not protecting war criminals.
    - groby_b 6y ago
      This has of course nothing to do with the original question, where they fall on the spectrum of political opinions. The democrats are roughly center-right when you look at it in comparison to major countries across the world. See e.g. https://qz.com/1748903/how-2020-us-democratic-candidates-compare-to-global-politicians/ https://qz.com/1748903/how-2020-us-democratic-candidates-com...
      - 6y ago
walrus01 6y ago
The vast majority of US democrats in the house and senate, if they were in Canada, would be members of the Conservative party.
- rtx 6y ago
  Do Conservative Canadian politicians like to bomb other countries where they have no business.

TeaDrunk 6y ago

> The left wants to include all of the traditionally divided groups on the surface but want's to divide those groups on new terms, gender, class, politics themselves(if you aren't with us you are against us) I actually disagree in this portrayal of leftist politics. A lot of these labels are people embracing themselves and actually acknowledging who they are and who others are and that’s fine. Being gay, trans, a person of color, disabled, etc. is acknowledged and embraced in leftist politics. I rarely see this sort of acknowledgement and celebration outside of a leftist worldview or a leftist pandering.

rbecker 6y ago
"Embraced": https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/It%27s_okay_to_be_white#Reaction https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/It%27s_okay_to_be_white#Reacti... White lives don’t matter. As white lives: https://www.theguardian.com/education/2020/jun/25/abolish-whiteness-academic-calls-for-cambridge-support https://www.theguardian.com/education/2020/jun/25/abolish-wh...
anm89 6y ago
Sure, I mean the nazis were embracing their shared arayan heritage. Choosing some innate quality you can't change as a focus of your politics is inherently divisive, the fact that it is empowering to some sub groups misses the point.
- TeaDrunk 6y ago
  That's precisely it, the nazis were embracing one singular shared heritage and killing people who didn't fall into it. This is precisely the opposite of the lefitst viewpoints, where you can announce your differences on your twitter bio as your identity and people are expected to acknowledge and celebrate them. "Afro-latina they/them autistic" and other announcements are pretty common along these lines are pretty common in a way I don't see outside of leftist circles.

deleted 6y ago

[deleted]

sudosysgen 6y ago

The goal of the left isn't to divide the population on gender and class, it is to make the already existing divisions apparent as that is a pre-requisite to actually fix them. Which is why leftists would call it ...-consciousness, because the goal is just to make people conscious of the already existing differences and then to heal them. The basic idea of modern leftism is that strongest, base distinction in society is class, but that there are other existing divisions that need to be bridged before class itself can be fixed. If it is not readily apparent to you, the US is already divided based on gender, class, and race, and the right party (really both of them) promote policies that would actually increase these gaps. They would ignore them in their rhetoric, but augment them in practice. Whereas the left augments them in their rhetoric, but seeks to minimize them in practice.

username90 6y ago
> The goal of the left isn't to divide the population on gender and class, it is to make the already existing divisions apparent as that is a pre-requisite to actually fix them. Republicans are officially against racism, pro black etc. So look at what people do, not what they say.
- sudosysgen 6y ago
  Sure. Then look at what the left actually does, and tell me how it makes racial, class, and gender divisions worse. The democrats in the US don't qualify as leftists, as I stated above.
  - username90 6y ago
    USA really need a political party that isn't 50% lawyers. No other country has such low diversity among politician backgrounds to my knowledge.
    - sudosysgen 6y ago
      I agree. I think some Islamic theocracies have around the same amount of diversity, though :P Though, the wave of Justice Democrats coming from working class background such as nurses and so on is encouraging

jhpriestley 6y ago

It's like history repeats itself. In Weimar Germany you had the fascists who wanted to persecute and scapegoat minorities and immigrants, but then the far left was also super intolerant of the fascists and actually killed some of them in street brawls. The truly wise group were the conservatives who were repulsed by both sides but willing to work with the fascists.

atomi 6y ago

For some historical perspective, generally, populist revolutions throughout history, especially in the West, have been leftist, the French Revolution, American Revolution, Mexican Revolution. Right wing revolutions tend to curtail rights like the Iranian Revolution. And the all time greatest threat to the world has been a right wing populist revolution; the rise of Nazi Germany - which thankfully was defeated.

luckylion 6y ago
Strange to see the American Revolution called leftist. And it wasn't a revolution in the sense of the French Revolution, of course. It was a province proclaiming independence. The Nazis got elected, they didn't start a revolution. The Russian Revolution is missing.
- atomi 6y ago
  > The Nazis got elected, they didn't start a revolution. Nazi's killed their political opposition, especially Communists.
  - Chlorus 6y ago
    20th century Communists, of course, were famously tolerant of their opponents.
    - atomi 6y ago
      > between 1933–39, with 30,000 communists executed and 150,000 sent to Nazi concentration camps.
  - luckylion 6y ago
    Do you believe that killing political rivals makes a movement a revolution? Is Assad in Syria running a revolution? The Nazis went wild with murdering everyone they didn't like after they got elected (not that they weren't into violence before, but Hitler's attempt at a revolution failed in '23, Hitler was convicted and went to prison). They got elected on a populist vote, but that's not a revolution. Revolution != getting elected by normal proceedings.

sokoloff 6y ago

> The right causes more damage in the short term in my opinion, things like immigrant detention camps I'm not so sure that immigrant detention camps are specifically a "right" issue. Mandatory detention was initially authorized by Bill Clinton in 1996. It's certainly gotten a lot more media attention (and executive Trumpeting) under the current administration, but the roots are by no means new nor exclusively right, recent media and meme focus aside.

drewcoo 6y ago

Well they convinced you that there are two sides, so they're having some effect on the narrative.

spaetzleesser 6y ago

“It' funny to me that both sides of american politics would claim they agree with this while saying it's the other side who wants to divide people and they are both right” I think this paragraph is spot on. I often like to ask people how they would feel if the “other” side had done/said the same thing “their” side is doing/saying now. Most often it seems people get mad at who does or says something and no matter what it really is. It’s a pretty sad state of affairs and will harm the country more and more. They are already setting up the groundwork for half the population not believing the outcome of the next election which will erode things even further.