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It looks like we are going to get into a "if-by-whiskey" argument. By "left", I meant the American "liberal" left, the EU-loving social democrats and so on. If

It looks like we are going to get into a "if-by-whiskey" argument. By "left", I meant the American "liberal" left, the EU-loving social democrats and so on. If you don't want to consider them "real left", fine. But the overall point is that these groups are by and large supporters of increased centralization and keep defending their policies on the grounds that "all it takes is a government with good intentions and people will be nicely living in Kumbaya-land".

dragonwriter 5y ago
> If you don't want to consider them "real left", fine. But the overall point is that these groups are by and large supporters of increased centralization They generally support a similar level of scale and scope of government as the parties the same distance on the opposite side of the local center, with different goals. There's nothing particularly left, even by your definition of “left” that excludes pretty much everything past the center-left, about it. On scale and scope, but not purpose, of government there’s a fairly broad centrist common position.
- rglullis 5y ago
  Disagree. Surely you can find more republicans defending more power to the states and criticizing Federal encroachment than democrats. Brexit was mostly a "liberal/left" vs "conservative/right" affair than any other. EU-skepticism is not only a nationalistic/authoritarian talking point. In Latin America, all the left governments have softened on their speech, but their ideology is pretty much dictated by the Foro de São Paulo and there has been more than one occasion where Lula/Chavez/Kirschner/Morales put their own countries below the FSP's agenda.
  - dragonwriter 5y ago
    > Surely you can find more republicans defending more power to the states and criticizing Federal encroachment than democrats. As vague rhetoric, sure. When you get to brass tacks, those same Republicans tend to also to want federal control to prohibit state actions that they disagree with across a wide spectrum of things. The Republican Party, no different than the Democratic Party, favors state control on issues it feels it can't rally a federal legislative majority on, and federal control where it can and there are states that would otherwise defy it.

dragonwriter 5y ago

> If you don't want to consider them "real left", fine. But the overall point is that these groups are by and large supporters of increased centralization They generally support a similar level of scale and scope of government as the parties the same distance on the opposite side of the local center, with different goals. There's nothing particularly left, even by your definition of “left” that excludes pretty much everything past the center-left, about it. On scale and scope, but not purpose, of government there’s a fairly broad centrist common position.

rglullis 5y ago
Disagree. Surely you can find more republicans defending more power to the states and criticizing Federal encroachment than democrats. Brexit was mostly a "liberal/left" vs "conservative/right" affair than any other. EU-skepticism is not only a nationalistic/authoritarian talking point. In Latin America, all the left governments have softened on their speech, but their ideology is pretty much dictated by the Foro de São Paulo and there has been more than one occasion where Lula/Chavez/Kirschner/Morales put their own countries below the FSP's agenda.
- dragonwriter 5y ago
  > Surely you can find more republicans defending more power to the states and criticizing Federal encroachment than democrats. As vague rhetoric, sure. When you get to brass tacks, those same Republicans tend to also to want federal control to prohibit state actions that they disagree with across a wide spectrum of things. The Republican Party, no different than the Democratic Party, favors state control on issues it feels it can't rally a federal legislative majority on, and federal control where it can and there are states that would otherwise defy it.