4 ms·

There is no longer a core of fiscally conservative but socially liberal citizens, that just does not exist. I also reject the premise of your first point. It d

by mlthoughts2018 6y ago

There is no longer a core of fiscally conservative but socially liberal citizens, that just does not exist. I also reject the premise of your first point. It doesn’t matter what the current within-country standard for left and right are, that’s useless semantics. All that matters is outcomes in peoples’ lives. A personal right to own assault rifles or limit federal funds for abortion (even if only for fiscal or states’ rights reasons) is emphatically far right in the sense of overall outcomes for lives, it does not matter what within-country label someone might want to call it by.

manigandham 6y ago
If the labels are now useless semantics than what was the point of your original comment? > "far right in the sense of overall outcomes for lives" What's this even mean? You're now redefining the term into something entirely different.
- mlthoughts2018 6y ago
  I did not say labels are meaningless. I said taking labels that have meanings, like far right vs far left, and trying to redefine them (semantic games) to be relative to some arbitrary standard within a single country (like saying “fiscal conservative but social liberal is “centrist” in the US” when in fact it all hinges on the fine points of those positions) is not helpful or useful. Political labels (not within-country labels at a point in time) can be useful. Far right and far left have long-developed meanings in terms of broad policies they endorse and those policies have meanings in terms of the actual measurable impact on lives and human flourishing. I feel your comment is not in good faith at all. Saying something like “what does this even mean” as a rhetorical deflection tactic when my comment was perfectly clear is very uncharitable and additionally it’s not contributing any new arguments or information, you’re just acting like the premise is unclear, but for no acceptable reason.
  - manigandham 6y ago
    The labels referring to political parties within a specific country will have meanings within that same context. > "to be relative to some arbitrary standard" That's what you were doing by saying the left isn't actually the left. Why? The left has a clear definition in the USA. You are redefining it for some reason. > "Far right and far left have ... meanings in terms of the actual measurable impact on lives and human flourishing." Yes, both extremes are generally terrible for lives. Was that the point? Otherwise no, I don't know what you mean. Perhaps you can answer instead of deflecting.
    - mlthoughts2018 6y ago
      You’re still seemingly deliberately misrepresenting and not engaging with my point and just disingenuously deflecting by appealing to increasingly abstract meta debates about relative definitions. It doesn’t matter if the labels of right or left would have context within the colloquial definitions within a country and I am not “redefining” them by saying those reference points don’t matter. There’s a superseding context in which far right and far left already have well understood definitions in terms of terminal values and how their policies map to those values. That exists outside of any given country or political unit. > “The left has a clear definition in the USA.” Uhhh no. That is not a reasonable thing to say. For example, Trump campaigned on the idea that Kamala Harris is extremely far left, but most people who identify as far left see her as basically just slightly left of center. The idea there is a clear “left” in the US is itself a pure Republican propaganda construction just so it can paint Democrat candidates as “evil socialists” no matter their actual policies or how they map to the superseding notion of left-leaning politics. Biden for example would have been a solid, firm Republican candidate ~35 years ago, even if running on a Democratic ticket. My main point is that “center” in the US is already very far Republican-leaning and has shifted increasingly towards the right wing in the past 30 years, to the point that a very, very right-leaning Democrat like Biden is now sensationalized as being “far left” in election propaganda. There is not actually any mainstream political group in the US that is really “far left” in the sense of offering a counterbalancing policy initiative that Republicans would have to significantly compromise away from their right wing core in order to engage with. Such a thing does not exist in the US. You can play games of redefining words if you want and pretend like whatever position is occupied by the Democratic party thus, by definition, represents the “left” and thus represents a ideological separation from “the right” but it would just be falsely shifting definitions, it wouldn’t make “centrist” in the US to be any less far-right-leaning that what it really, actually is.

manigandham 6y ago

If the labels are now useless semantics than what was the point of your original comment? > "far right in the sense of overall outcomes for lives" What's this even mean? You're now redefining the term into something entirely different.

mlthoughts2018 6y ago
I did not say labels are meaningless. I said taking labels that have meanings, like far right vs far left, and trying to redefine them (semantic games) to be relative to some arbitrary standard within a single country (like saying “fiscal conservative but social liberal is “centrist” in the US” when in fact it all hinges on the fine points of those positions) is not helpful or useful. Political labels (not within-country labels at a point in time) can be useful. Far right and far left have long-developed meanings in terms of broad policies they endorse and those policies have meanings in terms of the actual measurable impact on lives and human flourishing. I feel your comment is not in good faith at all. Saying something like “what does this even mean” as a rhetorical deflection tactic when my comment was perfectly clear is very uncharitable and additionally it’s not contributing any new arguments or information, you’re just acting like the premise is unclear, but for no acceptable reason.
- manigandham 6y ago
  The labels referring to political parties within a specific country will have meanings within that same context. > "to be relative to some arbitrary standard" That's what you were doing by saying the left isn't actually the left. Why? The left has a clear definition in the USA. You are redefining it for some reason. > "Far right and far left have ... meanings in terms of the actual measurable impact on lives and human flourishing." Yes, both extremes are generally terrible for lives. Was that the point? Otherwise no, I don't know what you mean. Perhaps you can answer instead of deflecting.
  - mlthoughts2018 6y ago
    You’re still seemingly deliberately misrepresenting and not engaging with my point and just disingenuously deflecting by appealing to increasingly abstract meta debates about relative definitions. It doesn’t matter if the labels of right or left would have context within the colloquial definitions within a country and I am not “redefining” them by saying those reference points don’t matter. There’s a superseding context in which far right and far left already have well understood definitions in terms of terminal values and how their policies map to those values. That exists outside of any given country or political unit. > “The left has a clear definition in the USA.” Uhhh no. That is not a reasonable thing to say. For example, Trump campaigned on the idea that Kamala Harris is extremely far left, but most people who identify as far left see her as basically just slightly left of center. The idea there is a clear “left” in the US is itself a pure Republican propaganda construction just so it can paint Democrat candidates as “evil socialists” no matter their actual policies or how they map to the superseding notion of left-leaning politics. Biden for example would have been a solid, firm Republican candidate ~35 years ago, even if running on a Democratic ticket. My main point is that “center” in the US is already very far Republican-leaning and has shifted increasingly towards the right wing in the past 30 years, to the point that a very, very right-leaning Democrat like Biden is now sensationalized as being “far left” in election propaganda. There is not actually any mainstream political group in the US that is really “far left” in the sense of offering a counterbalancing policy initiative that Republicans would have to significantly compromise away from their right wing core in order to engage with. Such a thing does not exist in the US. You can play games of redefining words if you want and pretend like whatever position is occupied by the Democratic party thus, by definition, represents the “left” and thus represents a ideological separation from “the right” but it would just be falsely shifting definitions, it wouldn’t make “centrist” in the US to be any less far-right-leaning that what it really, actually is.