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Marionumber1 » 27 Oct 2021 23:27 wrote:For most of my life I considered myself to be on the left side of the political spectrum.
So where does this person consider themselves to be? Your principles shouldn't automatically do a flip just because groups who claim (that is a key word, by the way) to share many of your principles turn out to be problematic. Yet I keep seeing this pattern of self-proclaimed former leftists beginning with qualms about the corporate left's rigidity and authoritarianism (generally more on social issues than economic or foreign policy issues) and ending up as full-blown right-wingers on nearly every policy issue; Michael Rectenwald of NYU is one who comes to mind. I have to say that if such principles are that easily reversed, they probably weren't held very strongly to begin with.
drstrangelove » 06 Nov 2021 13:20 wrote:It's interesting to note that if we accept a binary ideological spectrum, which one does when they feel the need to debate semantics, then every new ideological trend must be categorised alongside every old one, on either the left or the right. So the left and right both become more and more extreme, even if they don't in fact embody that extremism in actuality. However, by viewing each other as more and more extreme, they in fact become more and more extreme in reaction to each other. And the means through which democracy operates, majority view rule with minority view rights, becomes untenable.
Due to majority rule justification and the fact that urban populations are larger than rural ones, the left has been mobilised and radiclised to stomp out the right. And they do so righteously. But what's been created in this process isn't progressive or sociallist, but a Scientific Caliphate.
The issue as I see it these days is no longer political, but philosophical. Between those who believe scientific reductionism/specialisation can make human institutions omnipotent, and those that reject this premise.
It really is a tragedy that within the course of a decade the left has seen its last great hope in Bernie Sanders be snuffed out and replaced by the spiritual legacy of men like Josef Mengele and Shiro Ishii. Which is to say, the quest for unbounding knowledge in all absence of ethical consideration.
Belligerent Savant » Fri Nov 12, 2021 7:58 pm wrote:(yes, a similar argument can be made for those on the 'Right'. But when has the conditioning of the 'Right' ever caused such sheer devastation to lives and livelihoods over a ~20 month period? There is no precedent to this in the U.S. Nothing comes remotely close.)
Marionumber1 » 13 Nov 2021 01:23 wrote:Belligerent Savant » Fri Nov 12, 2021 7:58 pm wrote:(yes, a similar argument can be made for those on the 'Right'. But when has the conditioning of the 'Right' ever caused such sheer devastation to lives and livelihoods over a ~20 month period? There is no precedent to this in the U.S. Nothing comes remotely close.)
The post 9/11 period?
Belligerent Savant » Fri Nov 12, 2021 9:38 pm wrote:the manner in which the people have submitted themselves to the propaganda and conditioning, which, in contrast to the post-9/11 years, is trained not on an external/foreign enemy, but instead on labeled enemies among us.
A "left" that justifies oppression antithetical to its principles in the name of public health and a "right" that carved out one reasonable line in the sand while changing nothing else about itself
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