Bill and Hillary are good examples.  
(as are most southern dems, both in office and in the gp)

(December 25, 2016 at 1:14 pm)Orochi Wrote:

(December 25, 2016 at 12:25 pm)Minimalist Wrote: Russki military choir crashed in the Black Sea.  Looks like Drumpf will have to scratch them from the list, too.

mim that's cold plus 80+ people also died

I'm a bit of a prick, Oro.

(December 25, 2016 at 1:00 am)Tiberius Wrote: This doesn't explain the numerous people like me, who are not liberals but aren't conservatives either, and find most of the "names" accurate descriptions. We are talking about a guy who has made statements / actions which are racist, sexist, and ableist.

Where do you score on here:

http://www.gotoquiz.com/politics/politic...-quiz.html

I love these things, no two of them give you the same placement.




You know that our current crop of dems, using this metric and their voting histories, get placed authoritarian right, yeah (because of the "legal but rare" legislative mantra regarding abortion and our shared american passion for the free market)? Our "conservatives" near the upper right corner, with nowhere else to go but farther up, and farther right. Drift. Some choices are more heavily weighted than others. No amount of my love for guns and the free market can budge me an inch, on their scale, from the abortion question, lol. It;s fun to play with them, answer everything the way a cartoon neocon would -except- for abortion, this one will drop you center bottom, left libertarian. Apparently, that's the only difference...whether or not you have your fingers buried deeply in some unwed teenage girls vulva. So much for the breadth of the american political spectrum, lol.

(December 26, 2016 at 10:31 am)abaris Wrote: In what way compared to the far right? The last time I witnessed hurtful leftists extremism was in the 70ies when they provided the terrorists. Going by the German example having a populous right and a populous leftzt, the left is still less harmfull since it doesn't target entire groups as being inferior. It targets the capitalist system in an unrealistic way. But that's about all there is.

The far right on the other hand survives and thrives on scapegoating and fear mongering, which I consider to be the far more dangerous approach. Both usually have in common that they have no serious economic, educational or political concepts outside their populous talking points.

How are we defining "extremists" here, because I'm talking about beliefs rather than actions. There are plenty of people on the left who hold extreme opinions and express them as loudly as those on the right. For example, those in support of banning GMOs, nuclear power, etc, or those who hold that only women can get raped, and that male college students accused of rape should be investigated and judged by the college rather than the police. There are also those who believe in "safe spaces" in college campuses where freedom of speech is suppressed for fear of upsetting people. That's just a few opinions that leftist extremists have.

(December 26, 2016 at 11:00 am)Tazzycorn Wrote: Currently this is the kind of stuff characterised as far left (including by a lot on here trying to establish a false equivalency of extremes in US and UK politics, mainly because they don't want to see how fucked up their ruling systems are*):
Universal heathcare
Non-profit state public transport
Half way effective financial regulation
Employees union rights
Regulations designed to protect the environment

Forty years ago these things were largely non controversial outside the political far right and hard right, because most politicians lived through the consequences of not doing them and were not so easily bought.

*Not saying other parliamentary systems are less fucked up, but most people in, say, Ireland recognise that the parties in their country are very much pn ther right.

The left =/= leftist extremism. See my response to abaris above for some examples of the things that leftist extremists believe in.

(December 26, 2016 at 12:16 pm)Rhythm Wrote: Where are they, lol?  

Our "leftists" are the rest of the worlds center right.

On some things, sure. However there are plenty of actually extreme beliefs that leftists can hold, and I've listed a few above. I'm not arguing that these are held by all leftists, or all people on the left (which is why I'm labelling them "extreme").

(December 26, 2016 at 1:11 pm)alpha male Wrote:

(December 25, 2016 at 1:00 am)Tiberius Wrote: This doesn't explain the numerous people like me, who are not liberals but aren't conservatives either, and find most of the "names" accurate descriptions. We are talking about a guy who has made statements / actions which are racist, sexist, and ableist.

Where do you score on here:

http://www.gotoquiz.com/politics/politic...-quiz.html

You are a centrist social libertarian.
Right: 0.52, Libertarian: 6.52



I'm a pragmatic libertarian. Maximizing liberty should be the ultimate goal, provided that they don't have adverse effects on a person's life. If it can be shown that sacrificing liberty can increase a person's livelihood, that sacrifice is worth it, IMO. My go-to example on this is universal healthcare. Numerous countries have universal healthcare, which deprives people's liberty in the sense that (1) they are forced to pay for the service via taxes and (2) there is little to no choice in health insurance providers (e.g. even if private insurers exist, a person still has to pay for the government run healthcare via their taxes). However, in all of these countries it is clear that universal healthcare outperforms countries with private healthcare systems when it is funded properly, and the cost is often lower for everyone too. So in this case, sacrificing liberty increases the health and livelihood of society in general, and is a good thing.

(December 26, 2016 at 2:25 pm)Tiberius Wrote:

(December 26, 2016 at 12:16 pm)Rhythm Wrote: Where are they, lol?  

Our "leftists" are the rest of the worlds center right.

On some things, sure. However there are plenty of actually extreme beliefs that leftists can hold, and I've listed a few above. I'm not arguing that these are held by all leftists, or all people on the left (which is why I'm labelling them "extreme").

If you mean that there are nutballs on the internets, sure.  I prefer to use our politicians and their voting records as a measure of peoples "leftist" views...since the nutballs are either too few, or don't actually believe hard enough to get a nutball candidate into office.  They vote for center/hard right dems like the Clintons...which our facist element then calls "leftists" for hilarious and broadly stupid reasons. Left of their usual suspects, I guess. Makes for great TV, and low information voters fucking -love- TV.

Mine:

(December 26, 2016 at 2:25 pm)Tiberius Wrote: How are we defining "extremists" here, because I'm talking about beliefs rather than actions. There are plenty of people on the left who hold extreme opinions and express them as loudly as those on the right. For example, those in support of banning GMOs, nuclear power, etc, or those who hold that only women can get raped, and that male college students accused of rape should be investigated and judged by the college rather than the police. There are also those who believe in "safe spaces" in college campuses where freedom of speech is suppressed for fear of upsetting people. That's just a few opinions that leftist extremists have.

The last two examples are of course ridiculous. But I doubt that they represent more than the extreme fringe of any leftwing movement.

But how does the opinion that nuclear power carries dangers and should be shut down compare to inciting hatred against certain groups people? How does fighting capitalism compare to outright racism?

What I mean, one is hurtful, the other one isn't if it doesn't find a majority. Many things such as replacing nuclear power for new forms of energy isn't even hurtful if it was persued. It actually is persued in many European countries.

My opinion is this, if one side is attacking actual people while the other side simply strives for some kind of utopia for all the people, I know which side to choose. Given only those two choices.

(December 26, 2016 at 12:23 am)Jehanne Wrote:

(December 25, 2016 at 9:36 pm)Rhondazvous Wrote: Yea they'll be at work because of Obama. but once Trump gets in there things might change very quickly.

"It's the economy, stupid".  Some truths will never change, ever, or at least until our beloved World undergoes a runaway greenhouse effect.

P.S.  Not sure if that environmental meltdown, sure to be fatal, will even matter to the current candidates for office at that time.

Yes, I know the ups and downs of the economy are a natural occurrence called the nosiness cycle. As for the greenhouse, Trump probably thinks it's something he can turn into a casino.

---

(December 26, 2016 at 10:31 am)abaris Wrote: In what way compared to the far right? The last time I witnessed hurtful leftists extremism was in the 70ies when they provided the terrorists. Going by the German example having a populous right and a populous leftzt, the left is still less harmfull since it doesn't target entire groups as being inferior. It targets the capitalist system in an unrealistic way. But that's about all there is.

The far right on the other hand survives and thrives on scapegoating and fear mongering, which I consider to be the far more dangerous approach. Both usually have in common that they have no serious economic, educational or political concepts outside their populous talking points.

Is the left-right configuration the same in Europe and the US?

(December 26, 2016 at 3:18 pm)Rhondazvous Wrote: Is the left-right configuration the same in Europe and the US?

Course not. America was always paranoid towards any sign of leftism. What's considered left in America would be moderately conservative in Europe. The current republicans would be in competition with rightwing populists and neonazis. Mind the emphasis on current. They degraded into rightwing extremists during the last decade. Before that they would have been comparable to the right wing of mainstream conservatism in Europe. It speaks for itself that only the extreme European right celebrated the Trump victory.

It's also that only the UK has a similar political system. In every other country every vote counts. So there are more parties and they are represented in parliament. Such as the Green party or liberal parties in many European countries. Liberal shouldn't be mistaken for the American term but rather leaning towards Libertarianism.