is this board for the left-wing only?

[mentalgongfu2]

I tend to joke most when I'm really serious about something — it keeps me from screaming.

“It's a funny thing, I noticed when people are joking, they're usually dead serious, and when they're dead serious, its usually pretty funny. So, actually, I think anything you say means exactly what you say and its opposite.”

-JDM

[Sounder]

Luther Blisset wrote…

…but that we're going to be naturally predisposed to value one method of making the world a better place over another.

Yes, so we might drop the pejorative term ‘regressive’, and replace it with traditionalist. Also ‘progressives’ might want to concede that this is selected genetically because it serves a purpose in promoting and maintaining social stability. Similarly the ‘progressive’ mentality is genetically selected because it promotes social development.

So, our trouble, and my trouble with the world and this board, is that we have and stubbornly maintain a psychical conditioning system that sets up negative relations between order and liberty. This is not necessary, especially when we accept that the different styles of expression are inherent and not there to be overcome so that you’re personal self can feel vindication for your beliefs.

The ‘other’ that we take to be a threat, in fact represents the source of our salvation.

I would be regrettable if this were only a left wing only board.

Thanks Hugh for that ‘analysis’.

LPT wrote…

Anyone who's been around a lot of infants soon realizes that they're born with different basic hardwiring

If people have different hardwiring then that wiring ought not to be characterized as being good or bad.

[kool maudit]

Yes, this board is for the "left-wing" only.

It has been declared to be an anti-fascist board.
The "right-wing" is fascism, anti-socialist when humans are social animals.
Thus "right-wingers" are anti-human.

they have similarly complete summations to describe you, and similarly sweeping conclusions.

it seems odd that we must favour certain taxation structures in order to discuss such things as, you know, the skinwalker ranch.

of course you, hugh, would prefer we didn't discuss that either -- occusion of objectivity and all.

the anti-fascist label is an uneasy fit for you at times.

[nathan28]

it seems odd that we must favour certain taxation structures in order to discuss such things as, you know, the skinwalker ranch.

It seems odd that you would oppose certain taxation structures that are definitively in the interests of people who in all likelihood you are not and this somehow makes you feel uncomfortable discussing crop circles.

[kool maudit]

in your haste to perform (what you see as) your social role, you have jumped to a conclusion.

my support is not for the tax-systems, but against certainty, partisanism and walled-off realms of discourse.

it is neither rigorous nor intuitive to propose that certain beliefs concerning taxes, the role of the state etc. be mandatory here.

[nathan28]

in your haste to perform (what you see as) your social role, you have jumped to a conclusion.

my support is not for the tax-systems, but against certainty, partisanism and walled-off realms of discourse.

it is neither rigorous nor intuitive to propose that certain beliefs concerning taxes, the role of the state etc. be mandatory here.

Did anyone with actual authority propose them? Did HMWs call for you to be moderated? You're in a minority opinion here but no one is banning you or even warning you. If you're concerned with an "echo chamber" you should really try reading major English-language news publications some time. Yeah, I'm sorry, dude, most of the posters here are very uncomfortable with austerity measures and regressive Ayn Randian tax regimes, especially in light of a general economic crisis, and that this has sort of overwhelmed concerns about alien abductions, and I"m sorry most of us see the libertarians as an avant garde right-wing structure that serves the interests of the wealthy--see Rand Paul on BP, see the underwriters of the Cato Institute--but like I said ten pages ago, it's your job to provide a convincing amount of research and argument otherwise. If you try that "look at this moral panic story about barbaric brown people" and people call you out on it, that's not my fault.

[Simulist]

Yes, this board is for the "left-wing" only.

It has been declared to be an anti-fascist board.
The "right-wing" is fascism, anti-socialist when humans are social animals.
Thus "right-wingers" are anti-human.

Well, maybe. But I think what is anti-human is a bit more evenly distributed across the political spectrum in America.

To paraphrase what someone observed several pages back, "Left-wing of what?"

The right-wing and the left-wing in America are both connected to a predator, and both wings serve it.

[kool maudit]

If you try that "look at this moral panic story about barbaric brown people" and people call you out on it, that's not my fault.

you won't be able to tie me to the sin of racial bigotry easily. comb my posts here and elsewhere if you'd like to try and unearth it though.

what a cheap rhetorical move on your part. you remind me of someone's unpleasant college roommate.

[LilyPatToo]

Sounder said:

If people have different hardwiring then that wiring ought not to be characterized as being good or bad.

No, I didn't say the basic neural wiring was good or bad. I said that to me it looks as though some kids are born more easily frightened. And that it's fear that's used by the Conservative leadership to manipulate the minds of their followers.

Behind most Conservative issues I hear raw fear of "the other" and a tendency to give over basic human rights to leaders who promise to protect them from the enemies that they've been conditioned to fear since birth. George Lakoff, a cognitive scientist who's studied the deep cognitive "frames" that underly our conscious thinking calls this inculcated mindset "strict father frames": Learn early to obey the strict father and to defer to him and he will keep you safe. Questioning authority becomes anathema and the child grows up to transfer their unquestioning loyalty to politicians who are well aware of how to "play" on the voter's fears in order to stay in power.

Frame-triggering language is developed in Conservative think-tanks and used daily by politicians to keep susceptible people in a state of only partly conscious, deliberately triggered fear. To me, this is mass mind control, plain and simple. It's wrong--sociopathic, manipulative, morally bankrupt and utterly indefensible.

If you doubt that this is true, remember that I'm far from the first person to have caught onto the game. The Daily Show used to have a page up on their site where there were 5-10 second clips of dozens of Conservative talking heads saying the precise same words on TV within a day or so. Those words came directly from a think-tank and were the end product of millions of dollars of social science research. They were disseminated in a shotgun approach that worked wonderfully to keep Conservatives in a state of fear over issues like immigration, taxes and nonsense like "death panels."

LilyPat

[kool maudit]

the largest difference between a conservative and a progressive temperament is the belief in something of a fixed human nature, i think.

it's the authoritarian mindset that requires the feat -- though in our era it is certainly the conservative political faction that is trending authoritarian.

[Sweejak]

Filed!

Right, left, up, down. I'm an anarcho-pessimist. I'm a left-wing libertarian with carefully controlled autocratic tendencies. I'm a big government free market type, an egalitarian with a pathologically massive superiority complex. I'm a pacifist with a large portfolio of defense stocks. I'm a free speech or death fanatic who can't stand what most other people have to say. I'm a mind controlled freedom fighter wearing an insurgent tag. I'm a gun control advocating ubran survivalist with an arsenal. I'm a family values don't ask don't tell gay marriage supporter. I'm an anti-nazi, anti-zionist, anti-islamist Bismarck admiring real politik philosopher. I'm a techy luddite with a satellite wifi cabin in the wilderness. In a one dimensional circle world, I'm left of extreme right and right of extreme left. In an n-dimensional space projected on a taurus, I'm everywhere and nowhere. Can I post here?

[Simulist]

Sounder said:

If people have different hardwiring then that wiring ought not to be characterized as being good or bad.

No, I didn't say the basic neural wiring was good or bad. I said that to me it looks as though some kids are born more easily frightened. And that it's fear that's used by the Conservative leadership to manipulate the minds of their followers.

Behind most Conservative issues I hear raw fear of "the other" and a tendency to give over basic human rights to leaders who promise to protect them from the enemies that they've been conditioned to fear since birth. George Lakoff, a cognitive scientist who's studied the deep cognitive "frames" that underly our conscious thinking calls this inculcated mindset "strict father frames": Learn early to obey the strict father and to defer to him and he will keep you safe. Questioning authority becomes anathema and the child grows up to transfer their unquestioning loyalty to politicians who are well aware of how to "play" on the voter's fears in order to stay in power.

Frame-triggering language is developed in Conservative think-tanks and used daily by politicians to keep susceptible people in a state of only partly conscious, deliberately triggered fear. To me, this is mass mind control, plain and simple. It's wrong--sociopathic, manipulative, morally bankrupt and utterly indefensible.

If you doubt that this is true, remember that I'm far from the first person to have caught onto the game. The Daily Show used to have a page up on their site where there were 5-10 second clips of dozens of Conservative talking heads saying the precise same words on TV within a day or so. Those words came directly from a think-tank and were the end product of millions of dollars of social science research. They were disseminated in a shotgun approach that worked wonderfully to keep Conservatives in a state of fear over issues like immigration, taxes and nonsense like "death panels."

LilyPat

I agree with many of these important observations. But what happens when right-wing and left-wing politics are both arguably conservative, as in America?

It seems to me that about half the fear-triggered people are running toward people like Bush to protect them from "the terrorists" while the other half of this fear-triggered populace is running to people like Obama to protect them from the terror of Bush.

Of course while everyone is running around in fear, their homes are being stolen away from them by the people both parties have been working for.

[tazmic]

Filed!

Agreed! But there has to be a fav:

"I'm a techy luddite with a satellite wifi cabin in the wilderness."

Great finale too

[Nordic]

Sounder said:

If people have different hardwiring then that wiring ought not to be characterized as being good or bad.

No, I didn't say the basic neural wiring was good or bad. I said that to me it looks as though some kids are born more easily frightened. And that it's fear that's used by the Conservative leadership to manipulate the minds of their followers.

Behind most Conservative issues I hear raw fear of "the other" and a tendency to give over basic human rights to leaders who promise to protect them from the enemies that they've been conditioned to fear since birth. George Lakoff, a cognitive scientist who's studied the deep cognitive "frames" that underly our conscious thinking calls this inculcated mindset "strict father frames": Learn early to obey the strict father and to defer to him and he will keep you safe. Questioning authority becomes anathema and the child grows up to transfer their unquestioning loyalty to politicians who are well aware of how to "play" on the voter's fears in order to stay in power.

Frame-triggering language is developed in Conservative think-tanks and used daily by politicians to keep susceptible people in a state of only partly conscious, deliberately triggered fear. To me, this is mass mind control, plain and simple. It's wrong--sociopathic, manipulative, morally bankrupt and utterly indefensible.

If you doubt that this is true, remember that I'm far from the first person to have caught onto the game. The Daily Show used to have a page up on their site where there were 5-10 second clips of dozens of Conservative talking heads saying the precise same words on TV within a day or so. Those words came directly from a think-tank and were the end product of millions of dollars of social science research. They were disseminated in a shotgun approach that worked wonderfully to keep Conservatives in a state of fear over issues like immigration, taxes and nonsense like "death panels."

LilyPat

I agree with many of these important observations. But what happens when right-wing and left-wing politics are both arguably conservative, as in America?

It seems to me that about half the fear-triggered people are running toward people like Bush to protect them from "the terrorists" while the other half of this fear-triggered populace is running to people like Obama to protect them from the terror of Bush.

Of course while everyone is running around in fear, their homes are being stolen away from them by the people both parties have been working for.

Yup, between those two posts I see the essence of everything that most of us recognize and are interested in exposing and fighting, here.

If everybody in the country figured this out, things would change rather quickly.

Sadly, probably 90% of the population is the victim of this exact manipulation as described here.

I keep telling people the only reason you see Sarah Palin in the news is for exactly that which Simulist describes. The FEAR of her.

I don't know how many times I see on forums and message boards the whole "well would you rather have McCain and Palin??" whenever anyone says anything critical of the Obama administration or our government in general.

These people are very good at what they do, VERY good, and part of being good at it is keeping their manipulation as invisible as possible.

[Sweejak]

I've missed a lot of posts, but while I catch up and thinking about the OP again I'd say that the presumption on this board is that anything from the right is automatically bad. Isn't that true. So yes, there is a left bias on this board. Still, we have the Fuck Paul thread and the Fuck Obama thread, for whatever that's worth on the righty-lefty thing and it's not much insofar as trying to analyze the boards R/L politics.

As for psychobabble about the mental make-up of either of these "wings", I think it's very interesting stuff, but isn't it true that people change over time. The same people with the same upbringing, their tendencies often change as they age, perspectives shift as their time on earth expands and their time left shrinks. Typically, I'm told, this goes from the young rebel trashing inbred assumptions to the old guy talking about what's been lost, and often it's the same thing. I've seen it go the other way though. None of the R/L stuff or the Conservative/Liberal deal matters that much to me and it rarely means much on a personal level. On that level it is usually information stream differences that do matter. It's great for divisive politics and infighting though.

I think the most poisonous tendency everywhere today is political correctness. I don't see it on the right very much, they don't seem to care, but I do see a lot of it on the left. It's mentally corrosive.