Left, right and center (split from GOP Recovery thread)

[eternaltriangle]

@eternaltriangle
"most Republicans have engaged in scaremongering"

Wait a second. Republican's main core (and those with the same ideology in other country) IS scaremongering and fear-bringing at is best.

And being successful in politics requires screwing your base and winning over centrists/independents.

Also, it isn't as if the Democrats are not open to scaremongering either. Obama's first month in office was spent declaring that if his budget was not passed the economy would collapse.

[qwerty123]

Also, it isn't as if the Democrats are not open to scaremongering either. Obama's first month in office was spent declaring that if his budget was not passed the economy would collapse.



This is quite true. Both sides wield fear on a nearly daily basis. Turn on the nightly news, and well.. you know how it goes.

[wolf]

I tend to think that the GOP knew they were going to lose after Bush, and did all they could to bankrupt the country for the next 4 years (or more....)
The Dems take over, all is in shambles... the GOP blames the Dems... they win the next 12 years at least... kind of a rewrite of the Regan/Bush era. Hell....even Clinton leaned more to the right than the left... the GOP basically ran the show for the last 28 years.
Totally bogus. Shrub leaned left. GHWB was the last right-leaning president, Regan was the last right-leaning president to have a right-leaning congress.

[snip] ... and conservative domination of the media ... [snip]
Faux News is the only "conservative" media in the US, the rest has extreme leftist bias. What distorted world do you live in? You sound like a republican during the Shrub administration whining about "liberal bias" in the "drive-by media".

Obama has to do one hell of a job, if the Dems are going to be players in the next decade. This jury is still out... but from what I've seen so far, it's still more likely than not that he will do as well as can be expected.
As the failed leftist policies that got us into the mess fail to get us out, we can only hope for a radical backlash against both parties. The only danger is that the backlash will be to something we really don't want to see.

[jesse]

Both sides of politics advocate big government. There is no denying it. What ever their ethos or policies are, totally irrelevant. If the Republican party actually started implementing policy in alignment to their ethos, we would not have a media oligopoly or a banking consortium which has caused the TLC (three letter acronym crisis). I don't know where to begin with the Democrats.

Sometimes I wonder why I am interested in foreign politics.

The lack of critical thinking among the population and this cut throat attitude toward supporting either big party just because you carry their membership card over reason contributes to the corruption and decay to a so-called democratic system of government. General apathy likely also has a stake in this, small wonder because every time come election season, promises are made and eventually broken without making any noticeable changes for the better.

Other reasons I would note are the domination and infiltration by lobbyists of special interests, wall street and the rest of the finance gang, it becomes easy to bend the rules more and more. Do this or we will take our business elsewhere, do that or you'll suffer etc.

We should take into account that Democrats and Republicans represent enourmous political machinery and as such, they have plenty of wiggle room. Republicans are indeed more associated with conservatism and a slant toward religious folk while claiming to be much sympathetic towards deregulated markets. One one end you could easily have candidates and members who can be classified as free-market pro-choice libertarians while on the opposite end of the party has so-called centrists.

Reality paints a very different picture though. Government spending, government powers and repeated abuse of Constitutional provisions happen more and more. I must have missed that memo which says money is created from thin air and there are no obligations. :stunned:

The "only" two meaningful parties must be doing something right because they have not splintered into numerous parties but somehow maintain themselves as two gigantic umbrellas for a variety of policies and interpretations within certain bounds.

[nacht]

Faux News is the only "conservative" media in the US, the rest has extreme leftist bias.

"Leftist" != "Everything I don't like."

They have a bias toward controversy, and the news media in general tends to uncritically repeat republican talking points, with zero analysis even when they are outright lies. Many of them also do have somewhat clear biases against Democrats, as was quite visible in the last election cycle (hence the term "tire swing" that came up in the last election).

[wolf]

"Leftist" != "Everything I don't like."

They have a bias toward controversy, and the news media in general tends to uncritically repeat republican talking points, with zero analysis even when they are outright lies. Many of them also do have somewhat clear biases against Democrats, as was quite visible in the last election cycle (hence the term "tire swing" that came up in the last election).
No, "leftist" is a bit of a catch-all term to describe the political position of the media, which is technically authoritarian socialist with a number of twists. Basically, they hold the political position of radical democrats, much like Rush and FauxNews are radical republican.

If you thought they had right-leaning bias, you are so hopelessly left that you can't even see center. You probably think Obama is a moderate/centerist (hint: he's the most radical authoritarian socialist (read: democrat) the US has seen in over 70 years, and, curiously, Shrub comes in second). There are very few conservatives in the federal government...

[Lucid]

No, "leftist" is a bit of a catch-all term to describe the political position of the media, which is technically authoritarian socialist with a number of twists. Basically, they hold the political position of radical democrats, much like Rush and FauxNews are radical republican.

If you thought they had right-leaning bias, you are so hopelessly left that you can't even see center. You probably think Obama is a moderate/centerist (hint: he's the most radical authoritarian socialist (read: democrat) the US has seen in over 70 years, and, curiously, Shrub comes in second). There are very few conservatives in the federal government...

Or are you so far to the right that you can't see the center? If there's only ONE news station, in your opinion, that is straight up centrist and doesn't lean left, you may have something of a warped view yourself. Especially if you think there are very few conservatives in the government of one of the most right leaning industrialized nations on the planet.

Also, nacht's a libertarian. In light of which, your post is funny.

In general, socialists seek to redistribute wealth from private industry and private investors to the government and the tax payers. The fact is that Obama's administration is buying the bad bank assets and investing in them at an unheard of advantage to the private investor at the expense of the tax payer. Instead of taking over the banks and AIG, his administration is throwing money at them, also at the expense of the tax payer. If you think this is socialism I fear you are very mistaken.

[nacht]

No, "leftist" is a bit of a catch-all term to describe the political position of the media, which is technically authoritarian socialist with a number of twists. Basically, they hold the political position of radical democrats, much like Rush and FauxNews are radical republican.


Circular reasoning, n., see "Circular reasoning."


If you thought they had right-leaning bias, you are so hopelessly left that you can't even see center. You probably think Obama is a moderate/centerist (hint: he's the most radical authoritarian socialist (read: democrat) the US has seen in over 70 years, and, curiously, Shrub comes in second). There are very few conservatives in the federal government...

Put the ideological smelling salts down and back away slowly.

First, you should probably not jump to conclusions about what I think or don't think (hint: I use numbers (To view links or images in this forum your post count must be 2 or greater. You currently have 0 posts.) and analysis when making these decisions, not talking points--Obama comes in at 13.5, Bush comes in at 101; see the page for relevant context on what exactly that means).

Second, your attempting to paint Bush as an "authoritarian socialist" is ridiculous to the point of being laughable. It means that you have defined your terms so broadly as to the point of being meaningless.

Yes, he had some "socialist" policies. So did Teddy Roosevelt, that doesn't make either one of them "Socialist."

[firebee]

You probably think Obama is a moderate/centerist (hint: he's the most radical authoritarian socialist (read: democrat) the US has seen in over 70 years, and, curiously, Shrub comes in second). There are very few conservatives in the federal government...

"Reality has a well-known liberal bias."

But seriously, it seems like by your definition the chorizo I ate last night was "leftist". What the heck is the use in such a massively broad definition?

[mnmeq]

Has anyone else thought that Bin Laden is a fictional character?

Don't you mean Goldstein?

The lapdog media performance during run up to the Iraq war was enough to convince me that "liberal media bias" is either a thing of the past or a myth. Of course it doesn't hurt for the limbaughs to keep screaming about it so that the loyal base can keep pretending that fox news is "fair and balanced".

[wolf]

Or are you so far to the right that you can't see the center?
That'd be pretty hard for me, since I'm so disconnected from both sides that the vast majority of their positions make no sense or are offensive to me.

If there's only ONE news station, in your opinion, that is straight up centrist and doesn't lean left, you may have something of a warped view yourself.
I never made any such claim.

Especially if you think there are very few conservatives in the government of one of the most right leaning industrialized nations on the planet.
You mean least left-leaning. Most countries are so far out there at this point that they cannot even comprehend the concept of a free market, let alone personal freedom. My positions probably sound completely alien to them

[Lucid]

That'd be pretty hard for me, since I'm so disconnected from both sides that the vast majority of their positions make no sense or are offensive to me.


I never made any such claim.


You mean least left-leaning. Most countries are so far out there at this point that they cannot even comprehend the concept of a free market, let alone personal freedom. My positions probably sound completely alien to them

Your last sentence seems to contradict your first sentence. You appear to be saying that you are neither left nor right and therefore my suggestion that you are right leaning in the extreme is incorrect... and also that your positions are so different from the "leftist" rest of the world that they would sound completely alien to them... which implies that you are extremely far to the right by most peoples' standards. Would you mind clarifying a bit?

[wolf]

Your last sentence seems to contradict your first sentence. You appear to be saying that you are neither left nor right and therefore my suggestion that you are right leaning in the extreme is incorrect... and also that your positions are so different from the "leftist" rest of the world that they would sound completely alien to them... which implies that you are extremely far to the right by most peoples' standards. Would you mind clarifying a bit?
Most countries have long-since left the center behind; the decision to go to socialism has already been made and it is so ingrained in the people that they can barely comprehend another position. The only thing they decide is where it comes from, where it goes, and how much. That is pretty much what you've had with all federal elections in the two-party system since the early 90s.

It's the same problem with all academic classifications of right/left - the people doing the classifying are so far left that they don't even comprehend center.

[Lucid]

Most countries have long-since left the center behind; the decision to go to socialism has already been made and it is so ingrained in the people that they can barely comprehend another position. The only thing they decide is where it comes from, where it goes, and how much. That is pretty much what you've had with all federal elections in the two-party system since the early 90s.

It's the same problem with all academic classifications of right/left - the people doing the classifying are so far left that they don't even comprehend center.

Perhaps you would give an example of a centrist position, to give us a concrete example of what you're speaking about?

[eternaltriangle]

First, you should probably not jump to conclusions about what I think or don't think (hint: I use numbers (To view links or images in this forum your post count must be 2 or greater. You currently have 0 posts.) and analysis when making these decisions, not talking points--Obama comes in at 13.5, Bush comes in at 101; see the page for relevant context on what exactly that means).


I agree that Bush is hardly an authoritarian socialist. Is it really useful to compare Bush in that fashion, though? Putting the president in roll-call voting databases will always overestimate their ideological leanings. Firstly, Bush is being scored based on only 113 measures on which he expressed an opinion (as opposed to over 500 for most other senators - incidentally this is also why roll-call voting is a poor measure for presidential candidates, who miss lots of votes - except the important ones, which are likely to be party line votes).
Moreover, the president is more likely to weigh in on party line votes than non-party line votes, which will skew his average (not to mention that Republican-Democrat tends to be often how we define Conservative-Liberal in the first place). In the 107th congress Bush was ranked 70.5th for instance.

Bush was not a socialist, but he certainly enlarged government.
Bush dramatically increased education spending (in a manner that limited state control)
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Bush greatly increased healthcare spending as well at 6.8%/annum.
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Government spending as a whole increased too (incidentally, Nixon, Bush Sr. and Clinton look like the real fiscal conservatives).
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As for tax cuts, Bush's record is a bit ambiguous - he cut big, but then allowed taxes to rise considerably (Reagan's record is similar).
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[nacht]

I agree that Bush is hardly an authoritarian socialist. Is it really useful to compare Bush in that fashion, though? Putting the president in roll-call voting databases will always overestimate their ideological leanings. Firstly, Bush is being scored based on only 113 measures on which he expressed an opinion (as opposed to over 500 for most other senators - incidentally this is also why roll-call voting is a poor measure for presidential candidates, who miss lots of votes - except the important ones, which are likely to be party line votes).
Moreover, the president is more likely to weigh in on party line votes than non-party line votes, which will skew his average (not to mention that Republican-Democrat tends to be often how we define Conservative-Liberal in the first place). In the 107th congress Bush was ranked 70.5th for instance.


Yes, information is lost in this process and it is difficult to compare branches. It is not a perfect measure, however, saying that he has "leftist leanings" is clearly wrong for most rational values of leftist.



Bush was not a socialist, but he certainly enlarged government.

So has pretty much every president before him going back to Lincoln, especially when one considers the way that the government handles accounting.

So let's put (To view links or images in this forum your post count must be 2 or greater. You currently have 0 posts.) it (To view links or images in this forum your post count must be 2 or greater. You currently have 0 posts.) in perspective (To view links or images in this forum your post count must be 2 or greater. You currently have 0 posts.).

[eternaltriangle]

Excellent chart, but can you find one of discretionary spending? The president has little influence over a lot of spending that takes place.

[nacht]

Excellent chart, but can you find one of discretionary spending? The president has little influence over a lot of spending that takes place.

Top 5 presidents since 1964 by discretionary spending (To view links or images in this forum your post count must be 2 or greater. You currently have 0 posts.), the order goes GWB (R), LBJ (D), Ford (R), Carter (D), and Reagan (R).

[eternaltriangle]

Top 5 presidents since 1964 by discretionary spending (To view links or images in this forum your post count must be 2 or greater. You currently have 0 posts.), the order goes GWB (R), LBJ (D), Ford (R), Carter (D), and Reagan (R).

Merci - and might I add you have excellent data-gathering skills. I often use forum debates as a way to push myself to collect data for use elsewhere (eg. in papers).

[dogwoodlover]

The problem with these political debates is essentially equivocation.

Conservative, liberal, right, left, and socialist are all given meanings based on the subjective definitions of each poster. Not to mention that said terms are almost always completely ignorant of historical context.

As a Marxist/anarchist, I can't help but laugh at what people call "socialism." Clearly, most people who throw around the term have never given a serious study (or even consideration, for that matter) to the idea of socialism, in the context of its theoretical position, rather than those absurd totalitarian systems that flew under the ideological banner of "socialism." Thus, nearly all arguments and criticisms I have ever encountered against "socialism" have been ridiculously "straw-man" in nature.

My point, however, is that it would be immensely constructive to first "define your terms" before engaging in arguments of this sort. Carry on.

[eternaltriangle]

The problem with these political debates is essentially equivocation.
My point, however, is that it would be immensely constructive to first "define your terms" before engaging in arguments of this sort. Carry on.

Well said, and a cogent point from a historical perspective as well. The Republicans were founded as an anti-slavery party, but in the 60's courted white segregationists. The Democrats were once the party of free trade. The Republicans were once the main anti-war party. If you go back to the 1830's, the Democrats were the limited government party. My point is what is left and right has changed dramatically over time.

Secondly, I don't think the "Bush was actually a leftist" debate is all that productive (reminds me of when Marxists argue "yeah but the USSR wasn't really communist, they were actually state capitalists"). Even if Bush was a leftist, you are unlikely to convince people of that fact. Lets ignore Bush for a moment and ask - what should the new right look like? How to change? "True to the tried and tested principles of the Republican party?" Okay, but you do realize the Republicans have had a lot of different principles over the years.

One surefire way to change would be to alter the process of leader/candidate selection. The current system favours people popular with the base (like Palin) over those likely to win. I would suggest the following.
1. Eliminate staggered primaries - have all the voting on one day.
2. Elect delegates at the level of congressional districts.

This ensures that almost all candidates will be selected by a delegated convention. This also ensures that election results are more geographically representative. In a convention, it is party hacks, not ideologues doing the voting. Party hacks care first and foremost about winning elections and keeping the gravy train flowing. Ideologues, by contrast, care about picking a true believer. Hillary Clinton would have won easily in a vote of party hacks (exit polls in the Nov 2008 election suggest she would have won by a larger margin - 11 points - than Obama did).

[Indy]

The purpose of staggered primaries is now primarily to get in many weeklong newscycles, rather than a one (super) newscycle surrounding national voting day. The extra free publicity make this highly unattractive.

Secondly, the Republicans still managed to nominate McCain, against the wishes of the so-called base, with Palin as a sweetner for the bitter medicine McCain. So wouldn't this recent election indicate that the current system did get it somewhat right in getting a more moderate nominee.

I agree that if it were up to partyhacks, it would have been Giuliani (perhaps Romney) vs. Clinton. The dominance of states like Iowa and New Hampshire in the primaries does not make sense as well. While it favored the underdogs - Obama -, the amount of time campaining in little country towns does not seem very beneficial to either party, as it amounts to organizing the primary system.

I'd like to add that the constant rising of governmental expenditure doesn't have to be an irreversible future aspect of public policy. In European countries, amongst others, these rates have been going down throughout the late 1980's and 1990's. They are still much higher than US levels, but the statement that government spending has only increased since Lincoln days is easy to be regarded as an implication that this will consequently continue to increase.

Social security and Medicare are obviously heavily underfunded and imply a future commitment that is likely to met the upcoming decades, which has major consequences for the budget.

[firebee]

Most countries have long-since left the center behind; the decision to go to socialism has already been made and it is so ingrained in the people that they can barely comprehend another position.

So, in other words, your definition of right / left is such that pretty much everyone save you is a "leftist". I ask again: What is the use of a label that basically means "this person is breathing"? Or is it your contention that the minor policy differences between Obama and Bush are too insignificant to require differentiation?

For extra bonus, if you label a particular set of views "leftist" or "socialist" or "greatly resembling a jelly donut", does that tell us anything useful about whether said set of views is useful or not? Maybe there's a good reason why pretty much every country has "gone socialist" by your lights?

[reb]

i posted this elsewhere, but don't remember where i saw it....there is a 'linear theory' out there. the line looks like this:

lib>----------------------------------------------------------------------------<cons
dem--repub----------------------libertarian-----------------------------Constitution

this seems to me to fit about what i have seen working in civil service for nearly 30 years. the policies 'trickle down' believe it or not to the contracting workforce and funding people, and we saw their effects. i test just about centrist on that online political test, and am libertarian in most of my political thought.