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  1. #676
    Super Moderator Wind's Avatar
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    NAP's nemesis.
    Last edited by Wind, 7th July 2020 at 20:59. Reason: Brain fart

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  3. #677
    Retired Member Hungary
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    Quote Originally posted by Wind View Post
    That's funny. I would probably be considered as a very left leaning person by the world's standards, since especially in many countries being a right winger is considered the "norm." Except that in many parts in Europe being on the left is being considered the "norm". Yet I don't like social justice warriors and I don't want to get into identity politics. What matters to me is true equality, freedom and compassion for all living beings. Don't stomp on my freedoms and I won't stomp on yours. However, I believe that ultimately we are not free right now even here. We are free only as much as the laws allow us to be, but as a good person I don't need laws to tell me what's right or wrong. I would never harm others or I try to dictate how they should live their lives. That's my politics.
    Well, in other words, you are a classical liberal.

    I am pretty much on the same page, except I pepper it with a dose of realism, especially in terms of cultural and biological differences between various human groups, strictly on the basis of science of course.

    It's all common sense stuff, but it has become unacceptable to discuss these issues in the public sphere, just notice the extreme negative reaction against and deplatforming, even censorship of people like Jordan Peterson and Stefan Molyneux. They really don't say anything that should be controversial, but pointing out basic facts about reality is now considered racist, sexist bigotry. This is proof btw that the Left has won the culture wars and nowadays even moderately right-wing views are strictly verboten.

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  5. #678
    Senior Member Emil El Zapato's Avatar
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    no, that is not the case...those types lie in the face of actual truth to bolster their cause. Their propaganda is littered with it. Blame it on the right-wing's incessant lying and propaganda spreading. I gave up giving them even a passing thought a long time ago. And I came to that condition very honestly. It was at the behest of the False Prophet, a.k.a Rupert Murdoch.
    “El revolucionario: te meteré la bota en el culo"

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  7. #679
    Super Moderator Wind's Avatar
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    Quote Originally posted by Chris View Post
    Well, in other words, you are a classical liberal.
    Well, The Political Compass says that I'm Social Libertarian.


    In the introduction, we explained the inadequacies of the traditional left-right line.

    If we recognise that this is essentially an economic line it’s fine, as far as it goes. We can show, for example, Stalin, Mao Zedong and Pol Pot, with their commitment to a totally controlled economy, on the hard left. Socialists like Mahatma Gandhi and Robert Mugabe would occupy a less extreme leftist position. Margaret Thatcher would be well over to the right, but further right still would be someone like that ultimate free marketeer, General Pinochet.

    That deals with economics, but the social dimension is also important in politics. That’s the one that the mere left-right scale doesn’t adequately address. So we’ve added one, ranging in positions from extreme authoritarian to extreme libertarian.

    Both an economic dimension and a social dimension are important factors for a proper political analysis. By adding the social dimension you can show that Stalin was an authoritarian leftist (ie the state is more important than the individual) and that Gandhi, believing in the supreme value of each individual, is a liberal leftist. While the former involves state-imposed arbitrary collectivism in the extreme top left, on the extreme bottom left is voluntary collectivism at regional level, with no state involved. Hundreds of such anarchist communities existed in Spain during the civil war period

    You can also put Pinochet, who was prepared to sanction mass killing for the sake of the free market, on the far right as well as in a hardcore authoritarian position. On the non-socialist side you can distinguish someone like Milton Friedman, who is anti-state for fiscal rather than social reasons, from Hitler, who wanted to make the state stronger, even if he wiped out half of humanity in the process.

    The chart also makes clear that, despite popular perceptions, the opposite of fascism is not communism but anarchism (ie liberal socialism), and that the opposite of communism ( ie an entirely state-planned economy) is neo-liberalism (ie extreme deregulated economy)

    The usual understanding of anarchism as a left wing ideology does not take into account the neo-liberal “anarchism” championed by the likes of Ayn Rand, Milton Friedman and America’s Libertarian Party, which couples social Darwinian right-wing economics with liberal positions on most social issues. Often their libertarian impulses stop short of opposition to strong law and order positions, and are more economic in substance (ie no taxes) so they are not as extremely libertarian as they are extremely right wing. On the other hand, the classical libertarian collectivism of anarcho-syndicalism ( libertarian socialism) belongs in the bottom left hand corner.

    In our home page we demolished the myth that authoritarianism is necessarily “right wing”, with the examples of Robert Mugabe, Pol Pot and Stalin. Similarly Hitler, on an economic scale, was not an extreme right-winger. His economic policies were broadly Keynesian, and to the left of some of today’s Labour parties. If you could get Hitler and Stalin to sit down together and avoid economics, the two diehard authoritarians would find plenty of common ground.

    A Word about Neo-cons and Neo-libs

    U.S. neo-conservatives, with their commitment to high military spending and the global assertion of national values, tend to be more authoritarian than hard right. By contrast, neo-liberals, opposed to such moral leadership and, more especially, the ensuing demands on the tax payer, belong to a further right but less authoritarian region. Paradoxically, the “free market”, in neo-con parlance, also allows for the large-scale subsidy of the military-industrial complex, a considerable degree of corporate welfare, and protectionism when deemed in the national interest. These are viewed by neo-libs as impediments to the unfettered market forces that they champion.
    Quote Originally posted by Chris View Post
    I am pretty much on the same page, except I pepper it with a dose of realism, especially in terms of cultural and biological differences between various human groups
    This is off topic, but since you're a Hungarian I wanted to ask if you'd know if there's any backstory to the lyrics behind this song. I was very touched by it, that's a hauntingly beautiful voice and a beautiful language even though I don't understand a word! I saw the english translation though.
    Last edited by Wind, 7th July 2020 at 20:05.

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  9. #680
    Senior Member Aianawa's Avatar
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    Know you do not like Trump and great to see your honest imo assesment.



    Quote Originally posted by Chris View Post
    Except for the rather over-the-top patriotic grandstanding, I agree with Pat Buchanan's assessment of the current political and law-and-order situation in the US below. The Bidenistas have pretty much alieniated everyone, except a few select minorities at this point. Like him or not, Trump stands for Law and Order and that will win him this coming election in a landslide.

    https://vdare.com/articles/patrick-j...to_paragraph=7

    Patrick J. Buchanan: A Culture War Battle Trump Can Win

    Speaking at Mount Rushmore on Friday, and from the White House lawn on Saturday, July 4, Donald Trump recast the presidential race.

    He seized upon an issue that can turn his fortunes around, and the wounded howls of the media testify to the power of his message.

    Standing beneath the mammoth carved images of Presidents Washington, Jefferson, Lincoln and Theodore Roosevelt, Trump declared: "Angry mobs are trying to tear down statues of our founders, deface our most sacred memorials, and unleash a wave of violent crime in our cities."

    These mobs are made up of Marxists, criminals and anarchists. Their cause is a cultural revolution. "Their goal is not a better America. Their goal is the end of America."

    After reciting the achievements of his four predecessors, Trump added: "No movement that seeks to dismantle these treasured American legacies can possibly have a love of America at its heart."

    Then he put it right into the basement hideaway of Joe Biden: "No person who remains quiet at the destruction of this resplendent heritage can possibly lead us to a better future."

    Trump is calling out Biden's silence in the face of an onslaught against our heroes and history as manifest political cowardice that makes Biden a moral accomplice of the mobs.

    One day, Basement Boy is going to have to speak out.

    Where was Biden when Trump was standing up for America on Independence Day?

    As his Party tweeted that Trump's trip to Mount Rushmore was aimed at "glorifying white supremacy," Biden was wailing about the need "to rip the roots of systemic racism" out of America.

    Does that sound like Harry Truman or JFK?

    So the lines are drawn for 2020.

    On one side are those who believe America is a good country, the greatest the world has ever seen, and that the men who created this miracle should be respected, revered and remembered.

    That is not the view of the left wing of the Democratic Party.

    For even as the fireworks were exploding on the Mall, a Baltimore mob was tearing down, smashing up and dumping into the Inner Harbor a landmark statue of Christopher Columbus.

    That statue stood next to the Baltimore neighborhood of Little Italy and had been dedicated in 1984 by President Ronald Reagan.

    Do the haters of Columbus think that destroying Columbus' statues across America will not anger and alienate Americans of Italian descent who revere the explorer? Does Biden think Italian-Americans will reward a candidate and party that will not renounce the mob that did this?

    As the left wing of the Democratic Party embraces the "defund the police" movement, how long will it hold onto voters who are today watching murder rates climb to new records?

    During Independence Day weekend in Chicago, 80 people were shot, and 17 of them killed.

    In New York City, the number of shooting victims has risen this year by 50%. In June, there were 250 shootings, an increase of 150 over June 2019. Mayor Bill de Blasio's response: cutting $1 billion from the NYPD budget.

    Over July 4, an armed Black militia arrived at the reopening of the Stone Mountain monument in Georgia, which features huge carved images of Robert E. Lee and Stonewall Jackson. They want its destruction.

    Trump is charged with "dividing the nation."

    But it is not Trump trashing cops or providing cover for "protests" marked by looting and arson. Nor is it Trump tearing down memorials and monuments to the great Americans of the past.

    Where the Democratic Party has been a portrait in indecisiveness, Trump has been clear. He stands with the cops who have gone through a hellish six weeks. He stands against defacing statues and destroying monuments. He has denounced the rioting, looting and arson that have accompanied protests the media never cease to describe as "peaceful."

    It is not Trump who is dividing America. He has pledged to resist the rampages with all the weapons in his presidential arsenal.

    There are four months until November's election, 18 weeks until America decides: Do we want to continue an era of protests that revert to rioting, looting and arson? Do we want to see police departments further constricted and trashed as neo-fascist?

    Do we wish to see statues of presidents from Washington, Jefferson, Jackson, Lincoln and Grant to Teddy Roosevelt trashed by mobs that hate America, hate her heroes and hate her history?

    Trump's stand for tradition and against mob rule is the only stand the president can take. And it is a necessary stand. For this culture war is going to last long after this presidency. And it is going to determine what kind of country we shall become.

    Will it be the great and glorious republic of the past or the social and cultural Marxist hellhole that is the promise of the mobs?

    Trump just played the patriotism card, the correct card to play, and it may just work for his reelection.

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  11. #681
    Administrator Aragorn's Avatar
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    Quote Originally posted by Wind View Post
    Well, The Political Compass says that I'm Social Libertarian.

    Yep, I'm in that same quadrant myself.
    = DEATH BEFORE DISHONOR =

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  13. #682
    Senior Member Fred Steeves's Avatar
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    Quote Originally posted by Wind View Post
    Well, The Political Compass says that I'm Social Libertarian.

    That's about where I am.
    The unexamined life is not worth living.

    Socrates

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  15. #683
    Super Moderator Wind's Avatar
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    Quote Originally posted by Fred Steeves View Post
    That's about where I am.
    That's interesting, Fred. Then again, I never thought you'd be one of those conservative types.

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  17. #684
    Senior Member Emil El Zapato's Avatar
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    ... I guess that small move to the center makes me appreciate political correctness, of course, I call it human decency...

    Attachment 2462
    “El revolucionario: te meteré la bota en el culo"

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  19. #685
    Senior Member Fred Steeves's Avatar
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    Quote Originally posted by Wind View Post
    That's interesting, Fred. Then again, I never thought you'd be one of those conservative types.
    Well I used to be, and still am in certain areas the test either doesn't go, or is blurry on, like guns and abortion. But according to the way the questions are presented, and options given, that's where I'm at.

    I'm curious Wind. When you say "those conservative types", do I note just a bit of disgust in that tone? If I'm off base then my bad, but that is the general consensus of this forum.
    The unexamined life is not worth living.

    Socrates

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  21. #686
    Super Moderator Wind's Avatar
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    Quote Originally posted by Fred Steeves View Post
    I'm curious Wind. When you say "those conservative types", do I note just a bit of disgust in that tone? If I'm off base then my bad, but that is the general consensus of this forum.
    No, conservatism isn't necessarily a bad thing. I just wouldn't call myself one. However, I do have contempt for extreme ideologies.

    There's always the eternal tug of war between people who want change and those who don't want much change at all. Generally we can agree that life is in constant flux and change is the name of the game, nothing ever stays the same for a long time. Sometimes radical changes are needed in society, but you also don't want to change it too much. A balance has to be maintained. The older people become, usually the more conservative they become because they want things to stay as they "always" were in their youth. Younger people tend to be more liberal and want more change, but also they lack the experience and wisdom to know how much change is actually a good thing in the long run. It's not right to say that either are right or wrong, because the truth is somewhere in the middle. Also I'm generalizing here.

    It is good to get rid of sexism, it's good to get rid racism, it's good to get rid of financial inequality. However, if you start to chop off too many central pillars of society then of course you will have chaos and anarchy. Anarchy itself isn't a bad thing either, but there has to be certain amount of structure and order in society. If you have too much structure and order through authority then by definition society becomes authoritarian and fascist. I don't think many people would want that either. I am very wary of any authority figures, because the true definition of freedom means everything to me. I don't want to give my power away to anyone. Yet I have to follow more or less what society tells me to do. Of course I will still do things my way, because I am a sovereign being ultimately, but I don't want to get into trouble with laws either.

    Let people do what they want with their bodies and their consciousness, allow everyone to have a fair chance in life and let there be a proper support system which benefits everyone. Take care of the weak and vulnerable. Anti-war stance is the ideal. That's what liberalism means to me. I think that scarcity economy is such a relic of the past which is holding humanity back. It's still there for a reason and that's why we are still unwilling slaves to the system which is not our friend. Many people would say that this is the best we have now, but visionaries would say that we could have something much, much better if it wasn't for greed. Of course this is about more than just politics.
    Last edited by Wind, 7th July 2020 at 23:27.

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  23. #687
    Retired Member Hungary
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    Quote Originally posted by Wind View Post
    Well, The Political Compass says that I'm Social Libertarian.






    This is off topic, but since you're a Hungarian I wanted to ask if you'd know if there's any backstory to the lyrics behind this song. I was very touched by it, that's a hauntingly beautiful voice and a beautiful language even though I don't understand a word! I saw the english translation though.
    As expected, I'm pretty much a centrist, leaning more towards the Left, than the right:

    https://www.politicalcompass.org/ana...3.75&soc=-0.77



    Keep in mind though, this is an American survey, in Europe, my views would be considered pretty right-wing.

    @Wind
    Re: the song, I'm at work now, but I'll check it out in the evening.

    Finnish and Hungarian sound phonetically similar (as does Korean, in my view), so you would probably find the language familiar in terms of the way it sounds, but in other ways they are actually not at all that similar to each other. There are only a few hundred root words that are common in both languages.

    However, even though I don't speak Finnish, if I see a written text, I can read it with a very accurate pronunciation, to the amazement of all Finns around

    That is of course due to the phonetic similarities between the two languages.
    Last edited by Chris, 8th July 2020 at 06:44.

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    Senior Member Aianawa's Avatar
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    Whats outside of the square/s ?.

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  27. #689
    Senior Member Emil El Zapato's Avatar
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    Alien Aianawa ...

    Problems with the test:

    1. The questions are too generalized
    2. In the United States Libertarian is a personal construct where the category is meant as a social construct.

    Similar to South American and apparently Hungarian view of leftism as authoritarian where as in the U.S. leftism is viewed as Liberalism

    I'd say Wind's results are the closest to accurate and despite your misgivings Chris I would say yours is closer.
    Last edited by Emil El Zapato, 8th July 2020 at 11:34.
    “El revolucionario: te meteré la bota en el culo"

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  29. #690
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    When Saddam Hussein's statue came down it made little to no difference. When the Taliban shot up the ancient statues it was, in my opinion, a travesty.

    I have never been a fan of destroying history. The major city I live near, Baltimore, has the most historic sites of any major US city because they were not razed and built over. They were preserved and built around.

    I don't champion the statues. And I also understand that much of their symbolism, in terms of the South post-Civil War, was about keeping the black folks down.

    It was a form of intimidation during Reconstruction. Many statues went up well after the Civil War was over.

    My husband agrees with the idea that they should go to a park or museum for the sake of history and remembrance.

    Trump is losing his precious swing state voters in droves. Republicans will have to resort to their continued strategy of voter suppression.
    Last edited by Dreamtimer, 8th July 2020 at 12:18.

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