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Terrifying language from a civil liberties stance, but not altogether shocking given the existence of radical groups within the UK territory. What scares me ab

by fixxer 11y ago

Terrifying language from a civil liberties stance, but not altogether shocking given the existence of radical groups within the UK territory. What scares me about government, both in the US and abroad, is not the polarization of parties, but how quickly the dominant ideologies cycle from left to right. The pendulum swings to fast.

lawnchair_larry 11y ago
When has it ever swung "left"?
- arethuza 11y ago
  I think you would have to admit that the 1945 general election that removed Churchill from being PM and that went on to introduce the NHS was most definitely a swing to the left.
  - TheOtherHobbes 11y ago
    Considering that was 70 years ago, that's an unusual definition of "fast". It was also the last peak for the left. The trend since then has an acceleration rightwards. Don't forget the UK came close to removing a democratically elected prime minister in a right-wing coup - not just once, but twice. The last genuinely left-wing prime minister resigned not long after the second alleged plot - and by a divinely-ordained coincidence his replacement was so utterly useless the electorate found themselves voting for the kind of right wing government the plotters had been working towards.
    - arethuza 11y ago
      "his replacement was so utterly useless" Do you mean Callaghan - my recent readings of the relevant histories (particularly those by Dominic Sandbrook) paint him in rather a positive light. Callaghan and the other "real" socialists were as appalled by the behavior of the unions then as everyone else.
- fixxer 11y ago
  Well... Obama, Bush, Clinton, Bush, Reagan, Carter, Ford/Nixon, Johnson, Johnson/JFK... Looks like swings to me.
  - fweespeech 11y ago
    Obama and Clinton aren't "left". They are both very much the middle of the road politically. Bernie Sanders and Warren are the closet thing we have to a "left" in the US. They aren't presidents have little more than a bully pulpit.
    - fixxer 11y ago
      Perhaps by your metric, that is a true statement. The progressives I worked with were adamant and proud socialists and they worked his campaign.
      - yohoho22 11y ago
        Are you claiming that Obama is a socialist? If not (as I assume), then what was the point of your anecdote? I don't see where the guy you replied to claimed that Obama wasn't in some broad sense to the left of those he ran against.
        fixxer 11y ago
        I think you're making the assumption that the President is the movement. That is simply inaccurate. The President, or any politician for that matter, is a vessel through which objectives are carried out. I will happily claim that the Progressives are socialists. The standing President is part of that clan within the Democratic party.
      - fweespeech 11y ago
        By the metric of the Western world, it is a true statement. I think a large part of the problem is people in US politics really, really don't get outside the bubble of the US. http://nation.foxnews.com/john-mccain/2011/02/03/mccain-obama-centrist http://nation.foxnews.com/john-mccain/2011/02/03/mccain-obam... Even Republicans have stated on the record that he is a centrist. http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/politics/david-cameron/9427438/David-Cameron-angered-US-conservatives-with-unprecedented-election-year-embrace-of-Barack-Obama.html http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/politics/david-cameron/94274... > A second foreign policy adviser to Mr Romney said: “Cameron’s contacts with Republicans are really quite limited, and have been going back to when [George W.] Bush was president.” The adviser added: “In many respects Cameron is like Obama.” Like, this whole "Democrats are leftists" is just a Republican meme at this point in almost all respects.
JoshTriplett 11y ago
> What scares me about government, both in the US and abroad, is not the polarization of parties, but how quickly the dominant ideologies cycle from left to right. The pendulum swings to fast. That swing wouldn't inherently be a bad thing, if the parties on the right were more about the smaller government and more freedom that they market themselves with (at least in the US; I don't know if that's even part of the marketing message in the UK), and less about tearing down civil liberties. Does the UK have any parties that are actually in favor of smaller government and preserving civil liberties? Does anyone pay attention to those parties, or are they mostly ignored like third parties in the US?
- fixxer 11y ago
  Totally agree. We don't have a system that benefits moderates at all. Even if you are lucky enough to find a moderate within the party system, they inevitably caucus with the group.
- _delirium 11y ago
  Is that even the right's marketing message in the US? I feel like the "headline" messages from the right, at least here where I'm spending some time in Houston, are demanding more law-and-order and a more authoritarian government, not a smaller, more hands-off government and more civil liberties. The two big pet issues of the right here are: 1) cracking down on illegal immigration by any means necessary, and 2) cracking down on terrorism by any means necessary. Billboards are full of advertisements from prospective politicians, elected judges (a nutty situation itself), and elected sheriffs, promising how they're going to wield the arm of government more often, and more ruthlessly, than their predecessors did. Double the number of cops, build a border fence, put drones on the border, institute surveillance of mosques, allow no-warrant stops of vehicles, require citizens to carry an ID card at all times, etc., etc. And when issues get to the Texas Supreme Court, politically it seems to almost always be various liberal groups sending in amicus briefs on the pro-civil-liberties side, and conservative groups sending in briefs on the pro-government side. The one exception is gun rights, where basically both sides are in favor (in Texas), but the right is more strongly in favor.
  - 11y ago
dragonwriter 11y ago
> What scares me about government, both in the US and abroad, is not the polarization of parties, but how quickly the dominant ideologies cycle from left to right I think you may be conflating shifts in fairly narrow political majorities with shifts in "dominant ideology".
- fixxer 11y ago
  I'm referring to control of government. Yes, those majorities are narrow, but impact on policy is quite strong. Given the proclivity of the current administration to use executive orders willy nilly I anticipate that trend will only continue. The executive branch loves power, regardless of neocons or progs running the show.
  - zurn 11y ago
    The practical differences between the platforms of the 2 parties in UK and US are really small. They both orbit around the average moving voter. The situation is pretty similar in countries with real multi-party systems, with big parties courting the center. There are exceptions in exceptional circumstances (eg. Syriza).

by fixxer 11y ago

lawnchair_larry 11y ago

When has it ever swung "left"?

arethuza 11y ago
I think you would have to admit that the 1945 general election that removed Churchill from being PM and that went on to introduce the NHS was most definitely a swing to the left.
- TheOtherHobbes 11y ago
  Considering that was 70 years ago, that's an unusual definition of "fast". It was also the last peak for the left. The trend since then has an acceleration rightwards. Don't forget the UK came close to removing a democratically elected prime minister in a right-wing coup - not just once, but twice. The last genuinely left-wing prime minister resigned not long after the second alleged plot - and by a divinely-ordained coincidence his replacement was so utterly useless the electorate found themselves voting for the kind of right wing government the plotters had been working towards.
  - arethuza 11y ago
    "his replacement was so utterly useless" Do you mean Callaghan - my recent readings of the relevant histories (particularly those by Dominic Sandbrook) paint him in rather a positive light. Callaghan and the other "real" socialists were as appalled by the behavior of the unions then as everyone else.
fixxer 11y ago
Well... Obama, Bush, Clinton, Bush, Reagan, Carter, Ford/Nixon, Johnson, Johnson/JFK... Looks like swings to me.
- fweespeech 11y ago
  Obama and Clinton aren't "left". They are both very much the middle of the road politically. Bernie Sanders and Warren are the closet thing we have to a "left" in the US. They aren't presidents have little more than a bully pulpit.
  - fixxer 11y ago
    Perhaps by your metric, that is a true statement. The progressives I worked with were adamant and proud socialists and they worked his campaign.
    - yohoho22 11y ago
      Are you claiming that Obama is a socialist? If not (as I assume), then what was the point of your anecdote? I don't see where the guy you replied to claimed that Obama wasn't in some broad sense to the left of those he ran against.
      - fixxer 11y ago
        I think you're making the assumption that the President is the movement. That is simply inaccurate. The President, or any politician for that matter, is a vessel through which objectives are carried out. I will happily claim that the Progressives are socialists. The standing President is part of that clan within the Democratic party.
    - fweespeech 11y ago
      By the metric of the Western world, it is a true statement. I think a large part of the problem is people in US politics really, really don't get outside the bubble of the US. http://nation.foxnews.com/john-mccain/2011/02/03/mccain-obama-centrist http://nation.foxnews.com/john-mccain/2011/02/03/mccain-obam... Even Republicans have stated on the record that he is a centrist. http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/politics/david-cameron/9427438/David-Cameron-angered-US-conservatives-with-unprecedented-election-year-embrace-of-Barack-Obama.html http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/politics/david-cameron/94274... > A second foreign policy adviser to Mr Romney said: “Cameron’s contacts with Republicans are really quite limited, and have been going back to when [George W.] Bush was president.” The adviser added: “In many respects Cameron is like Obama.” Like, this whole "Democrats are leftists" is just a Republican meme at this point in almost all respects.

JoshTriplett 11y ago

> What scares me about government, both in the US and abroad, is not the polarization of parties, but how quickly the dominant ideologies cycle from left to right. The pendulum swings to fast. That swing wouldn't inherently be a bad thing, if the parties on the right were more about the smaller government and more freedom that they market themselves with (at least in the US; I don't know if that's even part of the marketing message in the UK), and less about tearing down civil liberties. Does the UK have any parties that are actually in favor of smaller government and preserving civil liberties? Does anyone pay attention to those parties, or are they mostly ignored like third parties in the US?

fixxer 11y ago
Totally agree. We don't have a system that benefits moderates at all. Even if you are lucky enough to find a moderate within the party system, they inevitably caucus with the group.
_delirium 11y ago
Is that even the right's marketing message in the US? I feel like the "headline" messages from the right, at least here where I'm spending some time in Houston, are demanding more law-and-order and a more authoritarian government, not a smaller, more hands-off government and more civil liberties. The two big pet issues of the right here are: 1) cracking down on illegal immigration by any means necessary, and 2) cracking down on terrorism by any means necessary. Billboards are full of advertisements from prospective politicians, elected judges (a nutty situation itself), and elected sheriffs, promising how they're going to wield the arm of government more often, and more ruthlessly, than their predecessors did. Double the number of cops, build a border fence, put drones on the border, institute surveillance of mosques, allow no-warrant stops of vehicles, require citizens to carry an ID card at all times, etc., etc. And when issues get to the Texas Supreme Court, politically it seems to almost always be various liberal groups sending in amicus briefs on the pro-civil-liberties side, and conservative groups sending in briefs on the pro-government side. The one exception is gun rights, where basically both sides are in favor (in Texas), but the right is more strongly in favor.
- 11y ago

dragonwriter 11y ago

> What scares me about government, both in the US and abroad, is not the polarization of parties, but how quickly the dominant ideologies cycle from left to right I think you may be conflating shifts in fairly narrow political majorities with shifts in "dominant ideology".

fixxer 11y ago
I'm referring to control of government. Yes, those majorities are narrow, but impact on policy is quite strong. Given the proclivity of the current administration to use executive orders willy nilly I anticipate that trend will only continue. The executive branch loves power, regardless of neocons or progs running the show.
- zurn 11y ago
  The practical differences between the platforms of the 2 parties in UK and US are really small. They both orbit around the average moving voter. The situation is pretty similar in countries with real multi-party systems, with big parties courting the center. There are exceptions in exceptional circumstances (eg. Syriza).