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All governments will trend towards tyranny if left unsupervised. Imo western democracies have been entirely subverted by an imaginary left/right conflict, where

All governments will trend towards tyranny if left unsupervised. Imo western democracies have been entirely subverted by an imaginary left/right conflict, where you end up with exactly the same thing no matter who you elect. The voting population is so completely engrossed with their contempt for either the detestable “left wing” tyrants, or the detestable “right wing” tyrants that they can’t see the side they end up supporting is just as corrupt as the side they hate, and almost identical in every way except rhetoric.

DaSHacka 3y ago
Its really quite surprising just how many American issues come down to this. Much of the identity-politics driven discussion of late can really just be boiled down to liberal vs conservative / right vs left.
- Eisenstein 3y ago
  I have noticed that people who are steadfast in positions and don't listen to reason and subscribe to 'identity' politics on both the left and right differ mainly in where they were raised and by who raised them. The Berkeley folk who mandate it illegal to burn wood in your own fireplace have more in common with people who think trans people should be forced to live as the gender defined at birth than they do with people who think we should listen to each other reasonably and have empathy. The problem is that when one set of people get weaponized by folks who are legitimately nefarious and or criminally stupid and mentally ill, there is not no moral stance which is effectively 'I don't like some people on one side so I will let the demonstrably dangerous people take the power and do what they want'. Do you have a solution to this? Because otherwise giving 'both sides are just as bad' speech is borderline negligent.
  - jdechko 3y ago
    “Don’t tell me what to do.” Brought to you by the party of telling people what they should do.
  - kelnos 3y ago
    I'll start off by saying I don't have a solution. But if I don't have any alternatives, I'd much rather have the "you can't burn wood in your fireplace" people in charge than the "force people to live as the gender assigned at birth" people. One of those people is pushing policy that ultimately saves the human race from making the planet uninhabitable, while the other is imposing their small-minded religious worldview on people who have nothing to do with them. And this is the thing that bothers me so much with the "both sides are just as bad" argument. Yes, agreed, they are, when it comes to listening to each other with empathy. I totally get that frustration, and I'm sick of the left/right culture war; both sides are to blame for perpetuating it. Further, I think it's unfair to say that these two groups have more in common with each other than people who can listen with empathy; you're just comparing two unrelated axes of commonality.
    - Eisenstein 3y ago
      I agree with you on all points. I was straining to think of a good example of the 'left-wing authoritarian' but I have definitely experienced it, and apart the location of birth they are the same exact people who are just as intolerant on right. On aggregate all humans operate pretty much the same everywhere in the way they think and operate -- the only difference is experiences and culture. That was the the point I was making -- we are never going to be rid of the people responsible for throwing wrenches in the political works. Tangent: I think the only way this gets fixed is by putting a benevolent AI in charge of everything.
      - immibis 3y ago
        The example of "left-wing authoritarian" is all the so-called "communist" countries of the past century. USSR, China, North Korea. The problem, of course, is that none of them were actually left-wing. They were all just bog-standard dictatorships, using left-wing-ism as their excuse to maintain power, but not actually doing left-wing-ism.
        hellojesus 3y ago
        Going back to the trans example, the attempts of Canada to pass compelled speech laws (and Michigan may have tried this recently too) would fall under left wing authoritarian practices imo.
immibis 3y ago
Right/left is not imaginary. Whoever told you that wants you to think it's imaginary, so you won't bother to oppose them, because you think the opposition to them is just as bad as they are.
- AmericanChopper 3y ago
  It’s imaginary in the sense that no matter who wins an election, you’re going to end up with substantially the same government every time. If you’re so concerned with political tribalism that you can’t see how utterly corrupt your own team is, then you’ve simply fallen for the distraction.
  - immibis 3y ago
    In some ways yes, in other ways no. If Hillary had won in 2016 the USA would still be a capitalist dystopia, but it would be a capitalist dystopia where women and transgender people had rights, and inflation would be slightly lower as most capitalists aren't as brazen as Trump when he publicly threatened to fire the Fed chair if interest rates didn't come down. If Trump won in 2020 most of the bad political things happening in Florida would be happening to the whole country. Besides, the Democrat party isn't left.
    - hellojesus 3y ago
      > where women and transgender people had rights, What rights do these people not have that others do? Rights belong to all individuals. > and inflation would be slightly lower as most capitalists aren't as brazen as Trump when he publicly threatened to fire the Fed chair if interest rates didn't come down. If Trump won in 2020 most of the bad political things happening in Florida would be happening to the whole country. It's hard to say. Tump loved to sirens, and I am no fan of that, but inflation has been coming since Clinton left office. I find it unlikely that Hilary would have reduced the deficit, especially given the unconstitutional business closure orders that many states enacted, which PPP and enhanced unemployment sought to make condition via addressing 5A, but which utterly failed at doing so imo.
  - 3y ago
kelnos 3y ago
I think that's demonstrably false. I don't have much experience or knowledge of politics outside the US, so I can only speak to US politics. The American right and left are very different when it comes to policy platform, and electing one or the other actually does have a measurable difference on what ends up happening to people in the country. This is especially true when we consider minority groups. I agree that both sides are mainly interested in consolidating power and increasing the scope of government's oversight of people's lives. But even if I use your terminology, the "left wing tyrants" and "right wing tyrants", if one or the other were given complete control of the country... well, the country would look very different after some time, depending on which side were given control.
- AmericanChopper 3y ago
  > But even if I use your terminology, the "left wing tyrants" and "right wing tyrants", if one or the other were given complete control of the country... well, the country would look very different after some time, depending on which side were given control. Well this is actually demonstrably false. Biden currently has the house and the senate, Trump has the house, the senate and the Supreme Court, Obama had the house and the senate… The rhetoric between these two sides is substantially different, but the governments they produce are very similar. They implement some token fraction of the policy platform they were elected on, and otherwise just plow through the same old policy agenda every time. Who’s opposing this Tory Online Safety bill in the UK? Technically Labour is, but only because they think it doesn’t go far enough…
  - int_19h 3y ago
    In US, "having" the Senate has been mostly meaningless since filibuster became a standard feature of every vote. And without a filibuster-proof majority in the Senate you really can't do all that much regardless of the platform. Not only that, but the issues that are most prominent in the rhetoric tend to be the more polarizing ones (which should come as no surprise, since that's exactly the kind of stuff that rallies "your" voters to the polls), and thus are the least probable to actually push through by getting votes from a few defectors on the other side.

DaSHacka 3y ago

Its really quite surprising just how many American issues come down to this. Much of the identity-politics driven discussion of late can really just be boiled down to liberal vs conservative / right vs left.

Eisenstein 3y ago
I have noticed that people who are steadfast in positions and don't listen to reason and subscribe to 'identity' politics on both the left and right differ mainly in where they were raised and by who raised them. The Berkeley folk who mandate it illegal to burn wood in your own fireplace have more in common with people who think trans people should be forced to live as the gender defined at birth than they do with people who think we should listen to each other reasonably and have empathy. The problem is that when one set of people get weaponized by folks who are legitimately nefarious and or criminally stupid and mentally ill, there is not no moral stance which is effectively 'I don't like some people on one side so I will let the demonstrably dangerous people take the power and do what they want'. Do you have a solution to this? Because otherwise giving 'both sides are just as bad' speech is borderline negligent.
- jdechko 3y ago
  “Don’t tell me what to do.” Brought to you by the party of telling people what they should do.
- kelnos 3y ago
  I'll start off by saying I don't have a solution. But if I don't have any alternatives, I'd much rather have the "you can't burn wood in your fireplace" people in charge than the "force people to live as the gender assigned at birth" people. One of those people is pushing policy that ultimately saves the human race from making the planet uninhabitable, while the other is imposing their small-minded religious worldview on people who have nothing to do with them. And this is the thing that bothers me so much with the "both sides are just as bad" argument. Yes, agreed, they are, when it comes to listening to each other with empathy. I totally get that frustration, and I'm sick of the left/right culture war; both sides are to blame for perpetuating it. Further, I think it's unfair to say that these two groups have more in common with each other than people who can listen with empathy; you're just comparing two unrelated axes of commonality.
  - Eisenstein 3y ago
    I agree with you on all points. I was straining to think of a good example of the 'left-wing authoritarian' but I have definitely experienced it, and apart the location of birth they are the same exact people who are just as intolerant on right. On aggregate all humans operate pretty much the same everywhere in the way they think and operate -- the only difference is experiences and culture. That was the the point I was making -- we are never going to be rid of the people responsible for throwing wrenches in the political works. Tangent: I think the only way this gets fixed is by putting a benevolent AI in charge of everything.
    - immibis 3y ago
      The example of "left-wing authoritarian" is all the so-called "communist" countries of the past century. USSR, China, North Korea. The problem, of course, is that none of them were actually left-wing. They were all just bog-standard dictatorships, using left-wing-ism as their excuse to maintain power, but not actually doing left-wing-ism.
      - hellojesus 3y ago
        Going back to the trans example, the attempts of Canada to pass compelled speech laws (and Michigan may have tried this recently too) would fall under left wing authoritarian practices imo.

immibis 3y ago

Right/left is not imaginary. Whoever told you that wants you to think it's imaginary, so you won't bother to oppose them, because you think the opposition to them is just as bad as they are.

AmericanChopper 3y ago
It’s imaginary in the sense that no matter who wins an election, you’re going to end up with substantially the same government every time. If you’re so concerned with political tribalism that you can’t see how utterly corrupt your own team is, then you’ve simply fallen for the distraction.
- immibis 3y ago
  In some ways yes, in other ways no. If Hillary had won in 2016 the USA would still be a capitalist dystopia, but it would be a capitalist dystopia where women and transgender people had rights, and inflation would be slightly lower as most capitalists aren't as brazen as Trump when he publicly threatened to fire the Fed chair if interest rates didn't come down. If Trump won in 2020 most of the bad political things happening in Florida would be happening to the whole country. Besides, the Democrat party isn't left.
  - hellojesus 3y ago
    > where women and transgender people had rights, What rights do these people not have that others do? Rights belong to all individuals. > and inflation would be slightly lower as most capitalists aren't as brazen as Trump when he publicly threatened to fire the Fed chair if interest rates didn't come down. If Trump won in 2020 most of the bad political things happening in Florida would be happening to the whole country. It's hard to say. Tump loved to sirens, and I am no fan of that, but inflation has been coming since Clinton left office. I find it unlikely that Hilary would have reduced the deficit, especially given the unconstitutional business closure orders that many states enacted, which PPP and enhanced unemployment sought to make condition via addressing 5A, but which utterly failed at doing so imo.
- 3y ago

kelnos 3y ago

I think that's demonstrably false. I don't have much experience or knowledge of politics outside the US, so I can only speak to US politics. The American right and left are very different when it comes to policy platform, and electing one or the other actually does have a measurable difference on what ends up happening to people in the country. This is especially true when we consider minority groups. I agree that both sides are mainly interested in consolidating power and increasing the scope of government's oversight of people's lives. But even if I use your terminology, the "left wing tyrants" and "right wing tyrants", if one or the other were given complete control of the country... well, the country would look very different after some time, depending on which side were given control.

AmericanChopper 3y ago
> But even if I use your terminology, the "left wing tyrants" and "right wing tyrants", if one or the other were given complete control of the country... well, the country would look very different after some time, depending on which side were given control. Well this is actually demonstrably false. Biden currently has the house and the senate, Trump has the house, the senate and the Supreme Court, Obama had the house and the senate… The rhetoric between these two sides is substantially different, but the governments they produce are very similar. They implement some token fraction of the policy platform they were elected on, and otherwise just plow through the same old policy agenda every time. Who’s opposing this Tory Online Safety bill in the UK? Technically Labour is, but only because they think it doesn’t go far enough…
- int_19h 3y ago
  In US, "having" the Senate has been mostly meaningless since filibuster became a standard feature of every vote. And without a filibuster-proof majority in the Senate you really can't do all that much regardless of the platform. Not only that, but the issues that are most prominent in the rhetoric tend to be the more polarizing ones (which should come as no surprise, since that's exactly the kind of stuff that rallies "your" voters to the polls), and thus are the least probable to actually push through by getting votes from a few defectors on the other side.