I've found it's typically conservatives who go nuts with conspiracy theories, FWIW.
Democracy hating comes naturally with an evaluation of how defective it is in the US.
sorry Welly, I hate politics!
Not being a "left-ist" or an anything-ist, I can't very well answer that question.
I do find it amusing though how people feel the need to be so in one camp or another. Personally, I hate our two party system where one side feels it must always be diametrically opposed to the other on every damn issue that they can come up with. Great example of how *not* to do a democracy IMO.
Welly, not sure why you're picking on Huffington.
Alright, so what we really have here are just "crazy people" in general. Not left, not right, just nuts.
True, and I'm not one to do that (say your system is faulty so you have no right to criticize others). I use Windows. Windows is, in many ways, inferior to Linux. However, I may bash Linux on faults it may have (perhaps things I view as flaws that other people view as positive attributes). Just because I use the faulty software does not eliminate my right to bash flaws in other software (be it actually superior or not).
If today's leftists are as nuts as you suggest, perhaps I'm not a leftist and more towards the middle...
I could openly declare support for Communism (when implemented and maintained properly, as has never happened and never will) but that might hurt my sales.
we dont have a parliamentary system like the UK where multiple-parties can take power via coalitions (which in turn encourages a blossoming of multiple parties). However that form of representative democracy has its own issues (such as a gridlock-times-10000 and regular dissolved parliaments).
so the two-party system has its problems but in truth the two parties function as 'umbrella' groups for a variety of interests, in effect the coalition process thus occurs before the election, in order to consolidate a majority of votes for the election. A third party in our system will not necessarily solve anything (and may simply weaken moderates even further by splitting up votes - remember the ralph nader effect? It was devastating for the democrats when Gore ran).
I just wish the two parties weren't so opposite on everything
We'll never achieve perfection (in any government), but things could be better.
seems to me what needs to happen is for the moderates to exert themselves much more forcefully within each party, show some leadership, be unafraid to engage the extremists and denounce them when necessary. And raise awareness within the party so people stop to think about this problem of extremism.
So it might just be a leadership problem (not unlike in the muslim world btw).
in our case, a lack-of-moderate-leaders problem compounded by the loss of clarity that I think is at the heart of it, clarity on what basic leftist values actually are.
Unfortunately, often when a politician tries to do anything that could be construed as being bipartisan, they're lambasted for not being a true republican/democrat. The more they continue on that path, the more they'll lose the support of the party. Similarly if a politician is too extreme to one end or the other, the chance they'll offend others is high enough that they'll usually lose support from the party.
Without support from the party, a politician's chances of election are low to non-existent. It's a self filtering system that drops the extremists and moderates. What you're left with is a bunch of people that are seemingly only there to oppose whatever the other people do. Even political ideals seem to play second fiddle to that essential opposition.
i agree this is an accurate description of whats happening. But I dont beleive the system itself is so inherently flawed that this outcome is inevitable. There is a lot of room for the role of individual leadership in this system and for the role of activism.
Even the tea partiers for instance, whatever else they are, they work their asses off to get the kind of influence they currently have. Moderates and centrists could do the same, there's nothing inherently preventing them from organizing, doing activism, and making their voices heard. Except maybe our own laziness or our own pessimism.
we dont have a parliamentary system like the UK where multiple-parties can take power via coalitions (which in turn encourages a blossoming of multiple parties).
It wasnt long ago that the 'left' defended democracy and human rights, respected things like evidence, and fought against religious fascism.The identity of America's enemies changed.
what changed? how did it change so radically in such a short time?
The identity of America's enemies changed.
The left, thus, is always in favor of America dealing with the beam in its own eye, and never the mote in the eye of some other country... even when that other country has attacked us or our allies.
The problem with that is that viewing even segregation as a "beam", compared to concentration camps as a "mote"... is a stretch. But then, with only a very few exceptions, the left fully supported America in World War II, with the isolationists mostly found on the right.
No, the system is not inherently flawed to the point where it is impossible. It's certainly possible with the right politicians, funding, and rhetoric. Education of the general populace to reduce the number of those who vote on party lines without a damn clue of who they're putting into office couldn't hurt either. Still, that's no small feat to accomplish. Hopefully some day it'll happen, but I don't have much confidence that we'll be seeing it any time soon.
All in all, the system itself is amazingly flexible. It's just ironic that it's run by a bunch of inflexible people.
I hate US politcs. It's a bunch of grandstanding, polarized *******s that think policy is best made by cock-blocking the other side and not passing anything rather than collaborating to form policy that works in the best interest for everyone (or as close as possible). Our system, these days, does not reward people that want to collaborate which, IMO, hurt Obama early on. Now it seems that the only way to achieve moderation is to vote each party in every other election and the far left and far right policy evens out instead of actually having true moderates in office.
That is all.
Now it seems that the only way to achieve moderation is to vote each party in every other election and the far left and far right policy evens out instead of actually having true moderates in office.I agree that U.S. politics is in a bad state.
we dont have a parliamentary system like the UK where multiple-parties can take power via coalitions (which in turn encourages a blossoming of multiple parties). However that form of representative democracy has its own issues (such as a gridlock-times-10000 and regular dissolved parliaments).
serious question.
where did all the conspiracy theorists and democracy haters, who have apparently taken over the 'left' in our popular culture and politics (e.g. huffpo and dailykos), come from?
It wasnt long ago that the 'left' defended democracy and human rights, respected things like evidence, and fought against religious fascism.
what changed? how did it change so radically in such a short time?
help me see a difference between neo-nazis and today's left. Because I cant.
Italy is a far better if extreme example as they've had 60 "prime ministers" since the war - a touch under one a year. Despite (or maybe even because of the) the chaotic government, Italy has recovered from the war years to become the 10th richest country in the world according to GDP. Perhaps strong government is less necessary than politicians would have us believe ?
serious question.
where did all the conspiracy theorists and democracy haters, who have apparently taken over the 'left' in our popular culture and politics (e.g. huffpo and dailykos), come from?
It wasnt long ago that the 'left' defended democracy and human rights, respected things like evidence, and fought against religious fascism.
what changed? how did it change so radically in such a short time?
help me see a difference between neo-nazis and today's left. Because I cant.
Show Image(http://www.millersantiquesguide.com/uploads/ImageRoot/images/U4RSGucJ.jpg)
Wouldn't use Italy as an example of a success story - most of the country is in ****, and it's just that some parts in the north that just happen to be rich enough to counteract with it.
It really depends on how you define "left" and "right". I'm going to assume that left = liberal and right = conservative, For the purposes of this discussion.
The problem with the left in America is that they're afraid to speak truth to power.
The recent downturn in the economy has proven even further that the right is out of touch with reality not only when it comes to foreign policy and science but also when it comes to economics. They're just plain wrong.
Now it looks like they are they are going to prolong the depression in the west needlessly out of a misguided hope that austerity will somehow boost the economy completely ignoring the past depressions. What was World War II if not a huge stimulus package.
We are getting fairly close to the technology required for a egalitarian society but of course the right is going to try to slow down the progress we are making as a society just like they did when it came to suffrage, public education, civil rights, social safety nets and slavery.
And third, how are the Republicans the ones out of touch right now? They're the ones who want to keep our government solvent!
Second, how does creating a bunch of government jobs help private employment? It just brings the US deeper and deeper into debt.
Government spending (whether on jobs or investment in infrastructure) does help private employment simply by adding extra money to the economy ... all those government workers are going to want to buy houses, groceries, gadgets, etc.
Now does that effect cure more problems than increasing government debt cause ? Depends on the amount of debt and how sick the economy is of course.
When was the last time the U.S. government was solvent..?
Depends on what you mean by solvent. If you mean not in debt, around 1840.
It's worth pointing out that the US still has a triple-A sovereign credit rating. That's the highest rating you can get.
so the two-party system has its problems but in truth the two parties function as 'umbrella' groups for a variety of interests, in effect the coalition process thus occurs before the election, in order to consolidate a majority of votes for the election. A third party in our system will not necessarily solve anything (and may simply weaken moderates even further by splitting up votes - remember the ralph nader effect? It was devastating for the democrats when Gore ran).what the US has today is a government supported monopoly on politics, with two parties (two-party tag-team of tyranny) written into law, providing for a false dichotomy with two sides, each wishing to take away half our rights (the only bipartisan thing they do is work together to take away all of our rights). One of the main calculated effects of the false dichotomy is incrementalism, which provides for a slow but sure erosion of liberty while minimally rousing an increasingly apathetic people (toward revolution where the oppression is no longer worth not cashing one's life in for a people's liberty.) The false dichotomy works elegantly into the human phsyche which enjoys yes/no/true/false queries, and provides for side-switching (between the two sides, rather than to a side which would promote liberty) which is caluclated to actually accomplish nothing. With the two-parties-by-law having a stranglehold on nearly all facets of government (including the ever important education sector) and by promoting a false sense of freeman's constitutional republicanism (as provided for by incrementalism), it can be expected that people rarely understand how to solve the problem of an unlawful and encroaching government or how to band together to control it.
pex said stuf...
You know, I'm sorry if I'm a little blunt, but you're an idiot.
First off, we're not even close to being in a depression.
Second, how does creating a bunch of government jobs help private employment? It just brings the US deeper and deeper into debt.
And third, how are the Republicans the ones out of touch right now? They're the ones who want to keep our government solvent!
This is the irony:
IF you want to talk about far left and far right, then yes, they're the same, and yet are incapable of working together.
If you want to talk about center-left and center-right, they're very different - and yet ironically, they are capable of working together.
As for destroying government altogether by claiming umbrella parties (like the dnc and rnc) are the same -- thats just silly. They're very different and have different understandings of both methods and uses of governments.
What you're hoping for is either some kind of libertarian anarchy where govt is removed altogether (I'm glad we dont have that) or some kind of commie utopia where government is everything (I'm glad we dont have that). These are likely what you envision when you dream of third parties. I wouldnt mind a centrist thrid party - but you would probably see them as 'collaborators' since they'd very much be willing to work within our system.
As for third party spoilers: See An Unreasonable Man (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/An_unreasonable_man) (netflix has it) and then see if you still dont think nader is a spoiler. He nearly destroyed america in that gore-bush election. And did so willfully. I respect his earlier consumer advocacy work before he got into electoral politics; but in electoral politics, he's basically a selfish dictator. A spoiler.
Didn't Keynes say that it was ideal for governments to be in some degree of debt? I don't know huge amounts about economics, but it seems to me that governments shouldn't cease to spend money on anything when hard times comes... breaking eggs to make omelets and all that.
Does anyone on this thread actually know what the 'left' is?
libertarians are a hard bunch to define. Being a generic anti-govt group, they tend to attract folk from both extreme ends of the political spectrum. Commies and anarchists on the far-left who want to destroy democratic govt like them; and so do anti-tax rich people (and evangelicals who dont want government protecting schools and institutions from prosletization).
I was under the impression that libertarians are more conservative on the monetary side and more liberal on the 'government shouldn't tell people what to do side' (which is actually quite conservative now that I think about it.) Is that correct?
Right now, agreements like GATT and the WTO stand in the way of this. So the whole world gets caught together in the trap of recessions with no easy way out.
Have y'all heard about what Cuba is doing (http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/39152912/ns/world_news-americas/)? It's proof positive that communism doesn't work.
yea, its pretty amazing. Castro also said in a speech that he no longer believes cuba's commie economy works. He also apologized for persecuting gays and dissidents during the cuban revolution. He also defended israel and said ahmedinejad was nuts.
how about that, huh? Never thought the day would come. (of course, too bad he didnt realize all this 50 years ago)
That's amazing...I wonder what made him change his mind? Wonder if it could work with North Korea?
there's also the question of what to get into debt for. The repubs have no problem debt-financing of wars, but balk at debt-financing for education, infrastructure, new technologies, health, or anything civilized ;)
But I always find myself arguing with the anarchists and 'big guv't, herp-de-derp' people who I always find among liberatarians.
When was the last time the U.S. government was solvent..?
Are you crazy? There was going to be a great depression, it's clear. The net economy, ebay, combined with cheap imports from China have totally undermined the global economy, and most are too stupid to realize it. I've been predicting it for 10 years. On top of that you had nut jobs deregulating the stock market and making it a casino.
It's pure idiocy and craziness and that type of thinking that it wasn't going to be a great depression, and that it isn't going to, and can't happen again that's causing it to happen.
I'm old enough, and my parents had me when they were old enough, that my parents lived through the great depression, and they were always scared of it happening again. Most people these days are generations removed from it, and just don't seem to get it.
The only thing that saved us, and is saving us from it is massive correction, spending, and stepping in from the government. If they had held the purse strings like Hoover, the world would be in total shambles right now. The world doesn't want to pay what it used to for houses, or for things, and as a result people are going to be out of work, and die.
That's why I'm moving to Japan/China as soon as I can get any money at all. lol
Have y'all heard about what Cuba is doing (http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/39152912/ns/world_news-americas/)? It's proof positive that communism doesn't work.
lol Cuba's been blockaded from trade for 50 years yet the government is still in power. Seems like it works to me. China's not exactly proving your point either.
You did not grow up in the Great Depression. What we've been through this past decade is nothing compared to it.
A government can stay in power for a long time even though the people are poor and oppressed. All the money they make (within the country) goes straight to the top. Is that what you mean by "it works"? And by the way, China is the same. Their economy may be huge now but their bubble will burst someday too. An economy that's essentially built on slave labor is not sustainable and won't stand forever.
Is that an argument against communism, or against capitalism?
An economy that's essentially built on slave labor is not sustainable and won't stand forever.What does that say about an economy built on another country's slave labour?
Communism.
What does that say about an economy built on another country's slave labour?
Communism.
EDIT: actually it's not really an argument against either one so much as against various unsustainable forms of government. China's happens to be a combination of the two.
Sounds the same as capitlism today to me. like 99% of the money is owned by like less than 5% of the population in the US or something ridiculous like that, and all our stuff is made by slave labor in China.
By trading with China, we in effect become communists in reality. That's real capitalism, getting the stuff for as little as possible, and selling it for the most, and as a result you deal with a government that has oppresses it's people, has caps on earnings, and completely controls every aspect of a person's life.
Name another country that can equal our payscales, working conditions, and all the other financial and non-financial benefits we have. I've already done research into working in other countries (and was about to at some points. I even interviewed for a job in Germany). But I couldn't find anywhere with as good benefits, pay, etc. as I have here. I live a comfortable lifestyle, and am not one of those 5%. And I work hard and contribute to society.
I liked Norway.
Don't really see the connection with us being communists...we're just cogs in the global economy, along with everyone else. And the reason why everything's made in China now anyway is because of the old American Unions (a socialist concept). And we're not the only ones who pay China to build our stuff...
If you as a democracy and capitalists deal with communists, the different economical systems infect each other. It's why we didn't want to have trade with Russia or Cuba. Because their systems are so antithetical, their workers who are forced into wage caps and shared wealth and like 50% or more in taxes and a communal health and government owned production the American companies can't compete and so get put out of business. This forces the government to step in, as they have for cars and in effect run them, or they die.
Norway's definitely got a great economy and is a rich country. But it's just very different from here...if you go there you would understand. I don't believe the payscale is as competitive but they do have a lot of decent benefits. There's just...not as much going on there. It's a different culture and everything...who knows you might like it. You could take a trip there instead of Japan...
I don't know anything about the working conditions there so can't comment on that...
I lived there for 6 months in 1995. I worked for SAS.
Oh wow cool...was the pay/benefits comparable to here? How were the working conditions?
As it's the only time I could find a job that would pay me more than $15 an hour, wasn't a minimum wage retail sales job, and had health benefits as a result of national health care, I can't really compare it to anywhere in the U.S.
Look at aircraft manufactures. Before we were forced to compete with airbus, which is a communist/socialist government owned aircraft manufacturing company, the US had half a dozen big jet makers. They were put out of business directly as a result of not being able to compete with Airbus. They all got eaten and rolled up into Boeing, which is now one giant conglomeration that in some way can complete because it has a total monopoly in the US as an aircraft maker. The government can't break them up, which in a real capitalist system they should have been broken up a long time ago because they would die against such global pressure.
Airbus is a private company which admittedly gets a lot of government assistance. Not only is the US complaining of government assistance to Airbus, but the EU is complaining of government assistance to Boeing :) Airbus itself is a merger of numerous private aerospace companies because of the dominance of US aerospace companies.
Don't know where you get the "communist" bit from - there's a certain amount of socialism around in Europe but there's no way on earth that the former communist countries would have "collaborated" with capitalist countries in the west in the formation of Airbus.
In a "real" capitalist system, the government wouldn't interfere with industry to break up monopolies which of course is why government interference is required.
The government's job is to ensure fair play and competition in a capitalist system. In a socialist/communist system the government owns the companies, so there would be no reason to break them up, cause they own them anyway. It might look like a socialist move to break a company up, but it's actually a capitalist one that ensures capitalism.
In a "real" capitalist system, the government wouldn't interfere with industry to break up monopolies which of course is why government interference is required.
You're confusing a free economy ("pure" capitalism) with a mixed economy.
You know, I'm sorry if I'm a little blunt, but you're an idiot.I'm pretty sure you're the idiot in this argument because you ignore history.
First off, we're not even close to being in a depression.We are getting closer by the day as enough jobs aren't being created to keep up with population growth. During the great depression there was a 20-25% unemployment rate in the United States. Right now we are at 10,6%.
Second, how does creating a bunch of government jobs help private employment? It just brings the US deeper and deeper into debt.You called me an idiot but you asked this question. Do you even have a basic grasp of economy 101.
And third, how are the Republicans the ones out of touch right now?There is no great bondsman that's coming to collect on the debt the united states is in. China is happily continuing to buy American bonds because it keeps the Chinese export economy going. In fact Japan complained about China buying their bonds because it increases the value of the yen which makes it less attractive for companies outside of Japan to import Japanese goods.
It might look like a socialist move to break a company up, but it's actually a capitalist one that ensures capitalism.I'm sorry but a spade is a spade. Joseph McCarthy is dead and no longer in office any longer. The cold war is over. You can use the word socialism, it's OK.
If you want to enjoy pure capitalism there is always Somalia.
If you want to enjoy pure capitalism there is always Somalia.If you want to enjoy pure socialism, there is always Zimbabwe.
As for Airbus is not owned by the government. As of 2005 Airbus is about 25% owned by French and Spanish governments. It used to be a lot more.
"real" by whose definition? Even adam smith (father of capitalism, for all intents and purposes) supported breaking up monopolies and even supported taxing the rich at a higher tax rate than the poor.
There's no such thing as a mixed economy in the real world. Or really, they're all mixed, and there's no such thing as a pure free economy.