Hilarious! Trump having problems finding artists.

[Amarok]

I have lived on left wing forums and while I have heard these positions spoken often as objects of ridicule never I have seen a greater deal of support at least not in the way presented

for GMO there tend to be 3 lines of critiisms

1.The ecological the concern of what happens when GMO plants are loosed on a native environment

2.The economic argument the idea of how this could harm farmers

3.The moral argument of patenting genes

4. Corporate dishonesty 

None of these seem unreasonable

For Nuclear power the general objection is

1. Competency of those who run the plants

2. Nuclear waste

3. Organization dishonesty

4. lack of willingness to innovate

5. There are better options

This doesn't seem radical

As for the other two position never heard them even on radical fem blogs

As for colleges

You call it suppression I call it not giving a soap box to bigots they have the right to speech not a venue

[downbeatplumb]

Not sure if you are joking or you made a typo but the "hard right" Democrats aren't the extremists, the leftist ones are.

The US seems to not have a left wing as such when you compare it to the left elsewhere. The Democrats seem to be to the right of the tories over here who are considered right wing. I don't know why but American politics seems to have been drifting to the right for years.

[SteelCurtain]

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 opinions on rape cannot even be classified as liberal opinions, and the safe space thing isn't even a political opinion.

Extreme left wingers are people who want the government to pay for more, and want the government to regulate business more.

[Tiberius]

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

That's what we're talking about though. This is the extreme fringe of the left.

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?

This isn't about comparing opinions of the two extremes because clearly they are at odds on almost everything. This is about the way they express those opinions, and the logic / science behind them. Both the extreme left and the extreme right loudly express their ill-informed opinions and use awful logic to support their arguments. That's how they are similar.

If you want to compare the actual opinions, then the leftist's anti-nuclear power argument is best compared with the far right's stance on climate change. Both are anti-scientific and environmental positions.

The racism of the far right is best compared with the racism of the extreme left, where people are told be ashamed of being <insert majority race here>.

So yeah, I'm not in favor of comparing apples and oranges when you can compare varieties of apples instead.

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.

I disagree. All of these extreme opinions are hurtful in some way, precisely because they are based on illogical and unscientific reasoning. Nuclear power, like it or not, is a clean energy source when it's implemented properly, and in terms of cost, it's much much cheaper than solar / wind on a price per kwh. So it checks most of the boxes that environmentalists like being checked, and is better for the economy. On top of that, it's a good job creator.

The fact that European countries are pursuing non-nuclear energy sources over investing in nuclear technology is a negative thing. Unfortunately the anti-nuclear rhetoric has a greater hold over there than it does in the US.

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.

I have yet to see actual evidence that the extreme left want a utopia for all the people; they behave like they want a utopia for only the people who think like them, where freedom of speech is suppressed to avoid hurt feelings, and scientific progress is rejected in favor of "natural" things (whatever that means).

[Amarok]

Not sure if you are joking or you made a typo but the "hard right" Democrats aren't the extremists, the leftist ones are.

The US seems to not have a left wing as such when you compare it to the left elsewhere. The Democrats seem to be to the right of the tories over here who are considered right wing. I don't know why but American politics seems to have been drifting to the right for years.

By Canadian standards the Dems are very right wing

[abaris]

The US seems to not have a left wing as such when you compare it to the left elsewhere. The Democrats seem to be to the right of the tories over here who are considered right wing. I don't know why but American politics seems to have been drifting to the right for years.

America never had a political organised left to speak of. The difference being that the right has moved to the extreme right. People like Eisenhower, Nixon even, Reagan or Bush Father, weren't extremists. Todays republicans are - at least in a large part.

Bernie would be the classical social democrat by European standards. Obama a conservative.

[Amarok]

The US seems to not have a left wing as such when you compare it to the left elsewhere. The Democrats seem to be to the right of the tories over here who are considered right wing. I don't know why but American politics seems to have been drifting to the right for years.

America never had a political organised left to speak of. The difference being that the right has moved to the extreme right. People like Eisenhower, Nixon even, Reagan or Bush Father, weren't extremists. Todays republicans are - at least in a large part.

Bernie would be the classical social democrat by European standards. Obama a conservative.

Oh hell yes even by our standards Obama's a conservative

[A Theist]

Can't post political compass results off my phone

[downbeatplumb]

The US seems to not have a left wing as such when you compare it to the left elsewhere. The Democrats seem to be to the right of the tories over here who are considered right wing. I don't know why but American politics seems to have been drifting to the right for years.

America never had a political organised left to speak of. The difference being that the right has moved to the extreme right. People like Eisenhower, Nixon even, Reagan or Bush Father, weren't extremists. Todays republicans are - at least in a large part.

Bernie would be the classical social democrat by European standards. Obama a conservative.

I agree.

I don't know what sparked this off initially but people even slightly to the left in the US seem to be being branded as soviet era communists and the people on even the main stream right are moving so close to actual fascism that its hard to tell the difference on a lot of issues. Now you have an extreme right wing president calling for more nukes.

No wonder the Christmas speech from the arch Bish of Canterbury was calling for calm in a climate of fear.

[abaris]

I have yet to see actual evidence that the extreme left want a utopia for all the people; they behave like they want a utopia for only the people who think like them, where freedom of speech is suppressed to avoid hurt feelings, and scientific progress is rejected in favor of "natural" things (whatever that means).

Sometimes the absence of evidence is evidence. They're not calling for the removal of certain groups from society. They don't - as Trump did - call for the removal of entire groups of people from the country.

That's what makes all the difference to me. Attacking people vs attacking political or economical models. Apart from the fact that the extreme right isn't fringe anymore. Not in Europe, as Poland and Hungary show, not in the USA, as the Trump victory shows.