USA Politics

Forostar said:
The "ideas" you talk about mainly consist of being angry about black mobs. The lack of having a clue about what moves minorities when they are unjustly treated is so in contrast with what fits to the intellectual level I expect of a fanbase as Iron Maiden's.

Yes, the EU is also racist when refugees come here. I for one, acknowledge that and even have discussed with people who downplay their treatment.
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I forgot, we cannot level any criticism of minority groups, they are always right
 
Exactly. Bernie Sanders is about as far left as mainstream politics are going to go in America. The USA isn't Europe, the range of our political spectrum is different.

Anyway, the point wasn't "how left is Bernie Sanders", but that the Democratic party is pushing to the left just as much as the Republicans are pushing to the right.
 
Left/right scale is universal. You can't go out and say "Bernie is an extreme leftist" because he's a politician in the United States. That's throwing the scale out of the window entirely, might as well use different terminology.

In a comparison between Saudi Arabian and Turkish governments, you wouldn't call the Turkish government centrists because they're not as extreme right as Saudis are, right? There you have it. Bernie leaning more to the left than Hillary does doesn't make him "extreme left".
 
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The Flash said:
Left/right scale is universal. You can't go out and say "Bernie is an extreme leftist" because he's a politician in the United States. That's throwing the scale out of the window entirely, might as well use different terminology.

In a comparison between Saudi Arabian and Turkish governments, you wouldn't call the Turkish government centrists because they're not as extreme right as Saudis are, right? There you have it. Bernie leaning more to the left than Hillary does doesn't make him "extreme left".
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it does if you compare him to other US Presidential candidates .. which is really the only comparison that matters as he is running for the President of the US.
 
Agree to disagree, Flash. I think the left/right scale is relative.
 
The Flash said:
Left/right scale is universal. You can't go out and say "Bernie is an extreme leftist" because he's a politician in the United States. ... Bernie leaning more to the left than Hillary does doesn't make him "extreme left".
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OK, so let's accept for the sake of argument that Bernie is not "extreme left" as you understand it -- what is, then? What does "left" even mean? In the U.S., it is thought to equate to being "liberal" -- but true liberals (as opposed to the political label, "liberal") believe in freedom, while many "left"-ist causes seem to devalue freedom considerably.

Take, for example, the Shining Path. They are communists, so presumably they'd be considered leftist. But they aren't "liberal" at all! They set up a violent dictatorship. So, are they really "left"? "Extreme," certainly, but not exactly paragons of freedom. I use them as an example, not to start a debate about that one group in particular, but as a reference point only. It's just the first one that came to mind as an example of what one might call "extreme left" -- even though it circled around to become something the opposite of what I consider to be liberal.

For a long time, the American ethos was that its citizens valued liberty and freedom above all else. "Give me liberty or give me death," that sort of thing. Based on the political choices Americans have been making for the past decade or more, I'm not so sure that's still true. On college campuses, free speech is often under siege. But the gun debate is a pure example of that ethos, at least among some citizens: it's not that Americans love guns (though that's part of it), it's that Americans love the freedom they have to own guns.

As an aside: Do kids in school still study Orwell? Ayn Rand? As for the latter, it's become fashionable to discredit her philosophy, but I think the bigger problem is that it has been coopted by the power mongers whom she actually reviled as an excuse to aggrandize themselves and exploit others. (She would have respected Elon Musk -- she likely would not have respected most bankers, no matter how wealthy.) Still, regardless of your views on her, I assume Orwell is still highly respected by pretty much everyone, right? (If not, then we're all fucked.) Orwell, at least, should be required reading for teenagers and/or college students.
 
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bearfan said:
it does if you compare him to other US Presidential candidates .. which is really the only comparison that matters as he is running for the President of the US.
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More left leaning is one thing. Extreme is another.

@Cornfed Hick From what I understand, left/right spectrum is almost exclusively founded upon principles of equality and social hierarchy. Not freedom. Extreme left is extreme because it strives for absolute no inequality. Centre-left is more focused on equal opportunity, not necessarily equality at all costs. The more right you go, the more desireable economic inequality becomes. Extreme right strives for absolute inequality, not just economically but also socially.
 
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By the way, I was openly rooting for a Bernie v. Trump general election. Not because I think either would make a good President -- I'm pretty sure they both would be awful -- but because I think it was the best hope of blowing up the entrenched political party power structure and forcing a reboot in 2020. Now, Hot Sauce Hillary will almost certainly win, and she's about as Illuminati as it gets.
 
The Flash said:
More left leaning is one thing. Extreme is another.

@Cornfed Hick From what I understand, left/right spectrum is almost exclusively founded upon principles of equality and social hierarchy. Not freedom.
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Depends on the context .. in terms odf Presidential politics and Senate politics .. he is really far .. perhaps extremely to the left .. I am sure there are plenty far to the left of him in the general population.

@Cornfed Hick : Sadly no, neither of my kids read either in High School and not so far in college
 
We read Orwell in High School. Ayn Rand was an option to read but most people chose not to (Atlas Shrugged is huge).
 
I feel like this is just a matter of semantics and not worth discussing at all. I think it's universal, you think it's relative. Not gonna go anywhere.
 
The Flash said:
I feel like this is just a matter of semantics and not worth discussing at all. I think it's universal, you think it's relative. Not gonna go anywhere.
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I think if you ask 200 random people, you will get 200 random answers .. both on what left and right means but who falls in those categories. I think @Cornfed Hick nailed it pretty much on target with

"
For a long time, the American ethos was that its citizens valued liberty and freedom above all else. "Give me liberty or give me death," that sort of thing. Based on the political choices Americans have been making for the past decade or more, I'm not so sure that's still true. On college campuses, free speech is often under siege. But the gun debate is a pure example of that ethos, at least among some citizens: it's not that Americans love guns (though that's part of it), it's that Americans love the freedom they have to own guns.
"

That is all that really matters. Most left/right generally fuck up freedom and liberty in remarkably similar ways
 
RTC said:
LBJ was better than Nixon, Ford, Carter, Reagan, Bush, Clinton and Bush Jr though.
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Say what you want about Reagan, but he did end The Cold War, and Ford really did nothing during his presidency. LBJ only escalated the Vietnam War causing one of the worst and easily most unessescary conflicts in US history. I also think Nixons impeachment overshadowed the other things he did during his presidency. But the rest? Yes, LBJ was better.
 
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