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The State of Global Politics Today


Shoblongoo
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38 minutes ago, Jotari said:

I don't think people having different opinions is the problem. It's great that people have different opinions. It's what makes us a wonderfully diverse and interesting species. Trouble arises when people get extremist about those opinions by refusing to listen to any other opinions and refusing to conceive the possibility that they could potentially be wrong.

That's essentially what is referred to when someone mentions polarization in the context of politics. It's undeniably a problem in US politics (and in general) for sure because that's what results in congress not getting shit done. Is it the biggest threat to democracy or US politics right now? I don't think so, I'd echo Shoblongoo's response that ignorance is a bigger problem. Politics is something most people prefer to avoid and the GOP uses that for theater to paint all opposition as radical (see the marginal Tax rate suggested by AOC), trick people into thinking that established actions they don't like are suddenly made up and abuses of power. 

For the latter point, today's hearing on Whitaker is a perfect example of this. Make no mistake, this hearing is entirely political theater from both sides with the Democrats hoping to catch Whitaker on a lie of the suspicions they have that he's been tampering with the Mueller probe or serving as a lackey forwarding information from it to Trump's lawyers. Now, what did the Republicans do during this hearing? Obstruct questioning and try to paint the picture that "Democrats are suddenly going out of the normal and abusing their powers to investigate a president they don't like". Many among their base would probably be ignorant and take this bullshit at face value, people paying attention would echo Chris Wallace of Fox News when he says they literally did this during Obama to make things difficult for him.

Ignorance to this history will lead folks to take the Republicans' side and vote against their own interests, resulting in the angry tweets that were posted earlier in the thread from Trump voters. They're angry now but who knows if they'll remember this tax Season in 2020 if it ends up being patched as a way to protect Trump from his own voters when they do their 2019 taxes next year.

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All this talk about conciliation strikes me as an argument made from a position of hubris and hypocrisy, at least when I posit this lens in front of the political situation in the country I live in. 

You have the children of an ex-dictator who not only are able to continue their political careers undeterred, they are even insisting that they haven't done anything wrong, that they were victims themselves. You have two former Presidents charged for plunder, who did time in the slammer (for half measure), but have been voted back to the political fold by their gullib...er, loyal constituents; one is the incumbent mayor of the City of Manila, the other, the incumbent Speaker of the House of Representatives (which means she is a congresswoman; never mind the fact that both these people have served terms in the highest office in the land and have been charged guilty of plunder. The fact that they, like the Marcoses, even have some currency in the local and national political markets is appalling, to say the least). 

When you have the children and ilk of former dictators and plunderers proclaim what they perceive to be their rightful place and tout themselves as victims of the politics of patronage they wield so skillfully themselves, what kind of conciliation would take place? What kind of healing/moving on would you suggest, when the side that fucked up does not appear to be repentant and/or propose any form of atonement or recompense, worse, come to the negotiating table reeking of hubris? 

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On 2/8/2019 at 8:05 PM, Dr. Tarrasque said:

That's essentially what is referred to when someone mentions polarization in the context of politics. It's undeniably a problem in US politics (and in general) for sure because that's what results in congress not getting shit done. Is it the biggest threat to democracy or US politics right now? I don't think so, I'd echo Shoblongoo's response that ignorance is a bigger problem. Politics is something most people prefer to avoid and the GOP uses that for theater to paint all opposition as radical (see the marginal Tax rate suggested by AOC), trick people into thinking that established actions they don't like are suddenly made up and abuses of power. 

For the latter point, today's hearing on Whitaker is a perfect example of this. Make no mistake, this hearing is entirely political theater from both sides with the Democrats hoping to catch Whitaker on a lie of the suspicions they have that he's been tampering with the Mueller probe or serving as a lackey forwarding information from it to Trump's lawyers. Now, what did the Republicans do during this hearing? Obstruct questioning and try to paint the picture that "Democrats are suddenly going out of the normal and abusing their powers to investigate a president they don't like". Many among their base would probably be ignorant and take this bullshit at face value, people paying attention would echo Chris Wallace of Fox News when he says they literally did this during Obama to make things difficult for him.

Ignorance to this history will lead folks to take the Republicans' side and vote against their own interests, resulting in the angry tweets that were posted earlier in the thread from Trump voters. They're angry now but who knows if they'll remember this tax Season in 2020 if it ends up being patched as a way to protect Trump from his own voters when they do their 2019 taxes next year.

Taxes are the last thing Trump voters are worried about when their kids can’t even support the president in a general sense without having their future careers threatened while they receive millions of death threats to the point of an entire high school having to shut down while the media lies about it.

Ignorance is definitely a problem in this country, but it is almost exclusively coming from people who think John Oliver is a news anchor, not the people who are remarkably lenient with even the domestic terrorists of Antifa.

And btw the article in this OP is the typical radical left garbage masquerading as naive libertarianism. As if it is such a tragedy that a western country actually respects its own national sovereignty and doesn’t bow down to corrupt dictators in the 3rd world. As if it is a tragedy that the indigenous people of various European nations are upset that castles(not the make believe digital Fire Emblem ones, the real ones that those were vaguely based off of)and other various historic sites are either being used to house “refugees” or are literally being torn down to build apartments.

Furthermore, so called “far right” isn’t seizing any open space, they are claiming the space they should have had all along in an actual democracy. There is no reason for a totally unprincipled and largely ignorant radical left to have as much power as it does, much less somehow be allowed to have a monopoly on nearly all western nations for decades.

Edited by Edelgard for Smash
Responding directly to the initial questions
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1 hour ago, Edelgard for Smash said:

Taxes are the last thing Trump voters are worried about when their kids can’t even support the president in a general sense without having their future careers threatened while they receive millions of death threats to the point of an entire high school having to shut down while the media lies about it.

And yet, the primary objective of their leadership tends to be more and more benefits for the wealthy while convincing their base that that trickle-down economics works since the 80s. I'm sure you're correct in this statement but it begs the question: why do they keep voting for people that have more evidence showing that they're just in it to enrich themselves and their rich donors as opposed to voting for people who will push for policies to improve their own livelihood? There's examples of Trump supporters choosing to not support Obamacare because it's something made by a black man when expanding it could've saved their lives. The GOP leadership had total control of the government and they could've tried to push for laws making impossible for MAGA hat wearers to be denied service or just demand respect or proper treatment for them but instead they just focused on the tax cuts for the rich.

You know how the right-wing like to tell poor people that a solution to their being poor is to just stop being poor? These kids can just stop wearing MAGA hats and supporting an asshole pushing for racist policies.

1 hour ago, Edelgard for Smash said:

Ignorance is definitely a problem in this country, but it is almost exclusively coming from people who think John Oliver is a news anchor, not the people who are remarkably lenient with even the domestic terrorists of Antifa.

Are you sure it's not coming from the people pushing for a wall that all data and research suggests it's a waste as well as being omitted from the current administration's own report on combating drugs? The definition of "ignorance"  is "lack of knowledge or information". Everyone who's read the information is against the wall but the Trump supporters keep insisting that the wall must be built. Do they lack this information or do they know something scholars and experts of the subject don't? If so, what do they know? what is the supporting data? Enlighten me.

Attempts to prove that Antifa are a national security threat have been tried and have failed. Chris Hasson on the other hand, is not Antifa and has been arrested. The right-wing ploy to suggest that Antifa is a truly serious problem in the US is a distraction from the reality of who's more at fault for terrorism and groups that actually are a problem.

1 hour ago, Edelgard for Smash said:

Furthermore, so called “far right” isn’t seizing any open space, they are claiming the space they should have had all along in an actual democracy. There is no reason for a totally unprincipled and largely ignorant radical left to have as much power as it does, much less somehow be allowed to have a monopoly on nearly all western nations for decades.

Funny that you say the left is unprincipled when Breitbart readers themselves are saying RINOs should forget their principles and vote for whatever Trump does instead of voting to block his national emergency call. 

Have you considered that maybe the left's so-called "monopoly on nearly all western nations" is a result of the right being more regressive than conservative? That people can see their charades and that they tend to not practice what they preach To be conservative is to put the brakes on changes and make sure they happen within reason, that is not what is happening when they're trying to REVERSE existing abortion laws and suggesting the death penalty for women looking to get an abortion.

They preach for "small government" yet push for a TAXPAYER-FUNDED wall that most Americans actually oppose, is the majority of America radical then?

And yes, the far-right is seizing open space. Right-wing extremism has gone up under Trump and it's not just leftists or centrists saying that Trump is a president for White Nationalists, there's an ex-KKK member chipping in and there's a former neo-nazi detailing how he was drawn into joining them.

Conservative columnists these days are slamming Trump and the GOP leaders, people whom they should be supporting if politics should be treated like a sport, because they know how bad Trump is and how bad it is for the current GOP to just sit idly by playing for party over country.

Quote

Far-right politics are politics further on the right of the left-right spectrum than the standard political right, particularly in terms of extreme nationalism, nativist ideologies, and authoritarian tendencies.

To suggest that this doesn't exist in the US for example, is to suggest that groups like Identity Evropa don't exist and that we didn't have a former member of the American Nazi Party run for Congress as a Republican in Illinois.

As for Far-Left politics, they may exist but given your statements here, the examples you're thinking off are likely not accurate representations of Far-Left politics.

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6 minutes ago, Dr. Tarrasque said:

And yet, the primary objective of their leadership tends to be more and more benefits for the wealthy while convincing their base that that trickle-down economics works since the 80s. I'm sure you're correct in this statement but it begs the question: why do they keep voting for people that have more evidence showing that they're just in it to enrich themselves and their rich donors as opposed to voting for people who will push for policies to improve their own livelihood? There's examples of Trump supporters choosing to not support Obamacare because it's something made by a black man when expanding it could've saved their lives. The GOP leadership had total control of the government and they could've tried to push for laws making impossible for MAGA hat wearers to be denied service or just demand respect or proper treatment for them but instead they just focused on the tax cuts for the rich.

You know how the right-wing like to tell poor people that a solution to their being poor is to just stop being poor? These kids can just stop wearing MAGA hats and supporting an asshole pushing for racist policies.

Are you sure it's not coming from the people pushing for a wall that all data and research suggests it's a waste as well as being omitted from the current administration's own report on combating drugs? The definition of "ignorance"  is "lack of knowledge or information". Everyone who's read the information is against the wall but the Trump supporters keep insisting that the wall must be built. Do they lack this information or do they know something scholars and experts of the subject don't? If so, what do they know? what is the supporting data? Enlighten me.

Attempts to prove that Antifa are a national security threat have been tried and have failed. Chris Hasson on the other hand, is not Antifa and has been arrested. The right-wing ploy to suggest that Antifa is a truly serious problem in the US is a distraction from the reality of who's more at fault for terrorism and groups that actually are a problem.

Funny that you say the left is unprincipled when Breitbart readers themselves are saying RINOs should forget their principles and vote for whatever Trump does instead of voting to block his national emergency call. 

Have you considered that maybe the left's so-called "monopoly on nearly all western nations" is a result of the right being more regressive than conservative? That people can see their charades and that they tend to not practice what they preach To be conservative is to put the brakes on changes and make sure they happen within reason, that is not what is happening when they're trying to REVERSE existing abortion laws and suggesting the death penalty for women looking to get an abortion.

They preach for "small government" yet push for a TAXPAYER-FUNDED wall that most Americans actually oppose, is the majority of America radical then?

And yes, the far-right is seizing open space. Right-wing extremism has gone up under Trump and it's not just leftists or centrists saying that Trump is a president for White Nationalists, there's an ex-KKK member chipping in and there's a former neo-nazi detailing how he was drawn into joining them.

Conservative columnists these days are slamming Trump and the GOP leaders, people whom they should be supporting if politics should be treated like a sport, because they know how bad Trump is and how bad it is for the current GOP to just sit idly by playing for party over country.

To suggest that this doesn't exist in the US for example, is to suggest that groups like Identity Evropa don't exist and that we didn't have a former member of the American Nazi Party run for Congress as a Republican in Illinois.

As for Far-Left politics, they may exist but given your statements here, the examples you're thinking off are likely not accurate representations of Far-Left politics.

Choosing between lunatics who want to make assault and death threats against you and your kids common place and legal or people who just don’t care about you all that much in the grand scheme of things isn’t really a choice. The idiots writing for the National Review will never understand this obvious fact and their children will therefore be forced to understand as those lunatics take power unopposed. They don’t get to choose whether there is a better alternative to Trump because they allowed the Democrats steal the country away from them after Reagan won overwhelmingly a little over 30 years ago with a similar message. If they had any clue at all they would have attacked Clinton with all the hate that the left attacks Trump with in 1992 along with anyone who supported him to destroy the Democratic Party when they were still weak and not as dangerous.

Antifa may not be a national security threat yet, but they are most definitely a local and state threat, and they are most definitely a terrorist group that threatens democracy when they show up to Republican election events and attack the people who come to them, even when they are with their kids.

And as for “progress” and being against it, when does “progress” ever have its intentions questioned? Why is legalizing infanticide even by the previous far left’s definition of the word considered “progressive” and not regressive? How is it more regressive to advocate the execution of someone who can easily be considered a murderer in most of the world than it is for a political party to support killing babies who are just about to be born? The people who are against the wall mostly for purely reactionary reasons and yet support “sanctuary cities” or states are indeed quite radical(as their political compass will certainly indicate), it doesn’t matter how many of them there are.

The “far right” advocate the same things that BLM does, is BLM “far right” too? The only difference between BLM and the “far right” is that BLM is respected by those on the left and the fake “centrists” and the “far right” actually has real concerns that they are justified in speaking out on despite being attacked and censored and fired for even showing up to protests in favor of their side.

The reason why you don’t think the far-left is active is because there really isn’t much of a true far left anymore. The original far left comprised of the children who imagined a paradise that would later become the horrible Soviet Union, people who genuinely thought that having an unlimited government would bring about a utopia. Now the entirety of left except the very center left is comprised of racist and sexist morons who hide behind nonsensical words like “intersectionality” to be genuinely terrible human beings. Without the racists who vote Democrat Obama would have lost to McCain(which probably would be worse than Obama winning).

 

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Funny. We were just talking about how that was literally his only legislative achievement in 2 years of undivided government, with a Republican House and Senate that would have rubber stamped almost anything he put on the table. 

Trump voters don't care about taxes though :rolleyes:

_______________

I kinda wanna keep strictly American politics in the other thread, and make this a place to discuss more global affairs.

Like--can someone who actually thinks this is a good idea please explain to me what the hell we're doing with these Kim Jung Un talks right now???

 

Edited by Shoblongoo
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8 minutes ago, Shoblongoo said:

Like--can someone who actually thinks this is a good idea please explain to me what the hell we're doing with these Kim Jung Un talks right now???

I haven't even been paying attention to them, I've been keeping my eye on the India/Pakistan thing

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3 hours ago, Shoblongoo said:

Funny. We were just talking about how that was literally his only legislative achievement in 2 years of undivided government, with a Republican House and Senate that would have rubber stamped almost anything he put on the table. 

Trump voters don't care about taxes though :rolleyes:

_______________

I kinda wanna keep strictly American politics in the other thread, and make this a place to discuss more global affairs.

Like--can someone who actually thinks this is a good idea please explain to me what the hell we're doing with these Kim Jung Un talks right now???

 

Except the OP explicitly mentions Trump and the “far right” repeatedly.

My posts were about global affairs.

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8 hours ago, Shoblongoo said:

I kinda wanna keep strictly American politics in the other thread, and make this a place to discuss more global affairs.

Like--can someone who actually thinks this is a good idea please explain to me what the hell we're doing with these Kim Jung Un talks right now???
 

Trump supporters who believe that he's seriously trying to get NK to denuclearize while saying the left is just hellbent on making Trump fail at it. I won't object to the possibility of some people on the left looking to see him fail but it's likely that they're not anyone with power.

If by some miracle he does achieve the goal of getting NK to denuclearize, then great, that will go down in history, he will get credit for and no one will be able to take that away from him.

Of course everyone else can see how seriously he actually takes these talks and how likely it is that Kim Jong Un will just play him... again.

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13 hours ago, Edelgard for Smash said:

Furthermore, so called “far right” isn’t seizing any open space, they are claiming the space they should have had all along in an actual democracy. There is no reason for a totally unprincipled and largely ignorant radical left to have as much power as it does, much less somehow be allowed to have a monopoly on nearly all western nations for decades.

This seems like one of the largest misunderstandings right wing people have. They assume the left is far more powerful than it actually is.

If you look at the political map of the western world you'll see that its largely run by right wing parties. Today the USA is ruled by the Republican party and you could argue the Democrats aren't all that left wing either when compared to European parties. But in Europe right wing parties also outnumber left wing parties as the dominant party. Cameron and May in the UK are right wing politicians, Rutte in the Netherlands is from the right wing VVD party, In Germany we have Merkel of the Christian Democrats which is a center right political philosophy, In France Macron says he's a centrist but a lot of reforms take away social security which would make him somewhat center left. And if you move further to the east you got right wing populist demagogues in power. 

And this is not a recent development in response to an all powerful left. America has always been a right leaning country, the founding politicians of the EU and Europe's dominant political parties have always been Christian Democrats, the Torries seem to be in power much more than Labour in the UK and in the Netherlands the Christian Democrats were traditionally the biggest before they were replaced with the liberals.

In contrast to the ruling right wing party the left seems to be in a lot of disarray. Left wing parties have been declining all over Europe not out of any disillusion with the left but because the left wing parties are not left enough. Left wing parties are abandoned by their voters because they moved away from the left and towards the center, because they supported right wing ideas such as mass austerity to combat the economic crisis. Corbyn, the ''marxist in sheep clothing'' isn't Labour showing its true colors but its members forcing a course correction after ''new Labour'' moved to the right. 

So where are all these mythical left wing leaders? How can radical left have a monopoly on western nations when the right  has all the power?

Edited by Etrurian emperor
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Even in northern European, where those filthy socialists live, it's predominantly run by right-wing governments. Norway, Denmark and Finland all have right-wing prime ministers and parliaments.

Sweden has a center-left PM, and Iceland is the only one with a full-on left-wing government PM right now, but they also had a right-wing PM until a year and a half ago. Sweden's the only of the northern European countries that has a solidly left-wing parliament, to boot.

Edited by Slumber
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Does anyone else think it's rather silly that we act as if all sociopolitical issues are simple enough that they can arbitrarily be sorted into a single left right spectrum?

On the Trump talks, one of my students yesterday said they think Trump will convince North Korea to abandon all long range nuclear capabilities but give them free use of short range missiles. Essentially making America safe from North Korean nukes but abandoning the likes of Japan and South Korea. Seems like a more than possible outcome.

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1 hour ago, Jotari said:

Does anyone else think it's rather silly that we act as if all sociopolitical issues are simple enough that they can arbitrarily be sorted into a single left right spectrum?

For western civilization as a whole, not really. The philosophies that influenced American politics are the same ones that influenced most of Europe.

On a grander scale, governments do act fairly similarly, and when you say "left-wing" in regards to, say, Germany, a lot of the same overall ideologies would be found in the left-wing in America. The left will largely favor progressing social issues, more taxation as a whole(Particularly on the rich), spending money on social programs, worker's rights, more consciousness on the global impact of these issues and so on. The right will more often be the opposite of these things, focusing on the country specifically, lower taxes, deregulation, a more reactive and hardline stance on issues, trying to keep societal norms in tact. In particular, far right-wing governments across the world are starting to adopt very similar policies. I want to say it all started with the Golden Dawn party in Greece about 10 years ago, but I might be forgetting some other prominent right-wing nationalist parties that gained steam before them, but that was the first one I noticed getting a lot of traction.

Though, in general, a lot of Europe's left-wing is definitely further left than America's. More-so in western and northern Europe.

It'll be different when you get down to more localized issues. Directly comparing America's left wing and Germany's left wing will look silly in this context, and that's where it's less applicable. Every country obviously has its own issues that have to be tackled.

1 hour ago, Jotari said:

On the Trump talks, one of my students yesterday said they think Trump will convince North Korea to abandon all long range nuclear capabilities but give them free use of short range missiles. Essentially making America safe from North Korean nukes but abandoning the likes of Japan and South Korea. Seems like a more than possible outcome.

This is one of the most disheartening theories. Knowing that North Korea is particularly interested in targeting South Korea and Japan, Donald Trump would be throwing two of our strongest allies under the bus and encouraging North Korea.

Edited by Slumber
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1 hour ago, Slumber said:

For western civilization as a whole, not really. The philosophies that influenced American politics are the same ones that influenced most of Europe.

On a grander scale, governments do act fairly similarly, and when you say "left-wing" in regards to, say, Germany, a lot of the same overall ideologies would be found in the left-wing in America. The left will largely favor progressing social issues, more taxation as a whole(Particularly on the rich), spending money on social programs, worker's rights, more consciousness on the global impact of these issues and so on. The right will more often be the opposite of these things, focusing on the country specifically, lower taxes, deregulation, a more reactive and hardline stance on issues, trying to keep societal norms in tact. In particular, far right-wing governments across the world are starting to adopt very similar policies. I want to say it all started with the Golden Dawn party in Greece about 10 years ago, but I might be forgetting some other prominent right-wing nationalist parties that gained steam before them, but that was the first one I noticed getting a lot of traction.

Though, in general, a lot of Europe's left-wing is definitely further left than America's. More-so in western and northern Europe.

It'll be different when you get down to more localized issues. Directly comparing America's left wing and Germany's left wing will look silly in this context, and that's where it's less applicable. Every country obviously has its own issues that have to be tackled.

This is one of the most disheartening theories. Knowing that North Korea is particularly interested in targeting South Korea and Japan, Donald Trump would be throwing two of our strongest allies under the bus and encouraging North Korea.

The thing is, I don't see any intrinsic connection between those things. On a fundamental level, what do taxation and social issues have with each other? What do abortion and gun control have to do with each other (because two completely opposite sides of those two issues in particular are based on expanding or limiting freedom)? These are separate issues that are lumped together to simplify everything into a two sided, us versus them debate. I don't deny that the left and right exist, I just think that it's sort of ridiculous that they do as I think that ruling the world is more complicated than a binary argument. The very fact that what constitutes left and right changes from country to country and even decade to decade just further shows how unhelpful it is to view the world in that way. Progressive and conservatives at least make a little more sense as terms since progress and conservation are kind of opposite ideas. But even then that's something that will vary rapidly with the climate yet it's  treated as policy positions. The worst would be the US's Democrat and Republican parties, two words than virtually mean the same thing, yet they're seen as so completely different to each other that politics begins to resemble soccer teams more than anything else. People literally try to argue wether the Nazis were left wing or right wing when it's a completely irrelevant talking point compared to their stances and effects thereof. I just think viewing the world as left Vs right inevitably leads to the idea that "I am left/right wing, therefore I support this issue because it's left/right wing" rather than "I support this issue because I've researched it and agree/disagree with it." I can't imagine why someone wouldn't consider themself a centralist unless they coincidentally happened to unanimously  agree with every left/right issue. I think measuring things based on several separate scales based on things like level of authoritarianism, nationalism Vs internationalism, integration of religion and the state, economic positions and good old level of extremism would be much more accurate. And even then it'd probably barely encompass the varied opinions any human can have on completely separate issue.

Edited by Jotari
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if you're judging from an american-centric perspective, then most of europe is communist compared to the united states

even conservatives understand that when things like universal healthcare are present then you can never go back on it if you want a political career

Edited by Tryhard
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1 hour ago, Tryhard said:

if you're judging from an american-centric perspective, then most of europe is communist compared to the united states

even conservatives understand that when things like universal healthcare are present then you can never go back on it if you want a political career

Once universal healthcare becomes the standard, by definition you've have to be a progressive to want to change it back. As it is the status quo that is being conserved. 

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that's....not what progressive means. not in a literal sense or the political sense.

On 2/28/2019 at 1:13 PM, Tryhard said:

if you're judging from an american-centric perspective, then most of europe is communist compared to the united states

even conservatives understand that when things like universal healthcare are present then you can never go back on it if you want a political career

and just to be fair to jotari, this isn't true either. the american political system is not that far right lol. consider from fivethirtyeight (2017):

image.thumb.png.2f7e6678bd6077a4052e851320fb2f21.png

https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/barack-obama-won-the-white-house-but-democrats-lost-the-country/

of course, the american right is moving farther right, but the point is our system, our socioeconomic system, is generally referred to as a "mixed economy" rather than a "capitalist" one, much less a laissez-faire one.

and just to take the focus off of america, as there's a dedicated topic for that, can someone explain the new developments for venezuelan power to me? 

 

Edited by Phoenix Wright
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8 minutes ago, Phoenix Wright said:

that's....not what progressive means. not in a literal sense or the political sense.

 

Progress. Moving forward or improving something. If you're country has public health care and you think changing it to have private health care would ultimately lead to a more successful society, how can that not be defined as progress in a literal sense? That's basically my point, that the political and literal meaning of the words basically don't work.

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4 minutes ago, Jotari said:

Progress. Moving forward or improving something. If you're country has public health care and you think changing it to have private health care would ultimately lead to a more successful society, how can that not be defined as progress in a literal sense? That's basically my point, that the political and literal meaning of the words basically don't work.

not quite. in a literal sense, "progressive" means that something is happening gradually over time. however, it's not too difficult to understand that words in a dictionary sense may have a separate definition entirely from the definition used in a field of study.

for example, energy literally means one's ability to perform actions. in physics, it refers to a quantifiable property of a system--its ability to do 'work.'

in a political sense, progressivism is a social, leftist (typically socialist) ideology that aims to reform the current system in ways that benefit all people. this includes social safety nets and single-payer healthcare systems.

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23 minutes ago, Phoenix Wright said:

not quite. in a literal sense, "progressive" means that something is happening gradually over time. however, it's not too difficult to understand that words in a dictionary sense may have a separate definition entirely from the definition used in a field of study.

for example, energy literally means one's ability to perform actions. in physics, it refers to a quantifiable property of a system--its ability to do 'work.'

in a political sense, progressivism is a social, leftist (typically socialist) ideology that aims to reform the current system in ways that benefit all people. this includes social safety nets and single-payer healthcare systems.

That's what my issue is. Reforming just means changing. Progress just means changing. And left is just an arbitrarily direction. We've assigned meanings and connotations to those words that don't actually work with their common use. If someone wants to reform the current system from public to private because they think it's better, then, in their view, they are working towards making a system that will eventually benefit all people. Unlike in science where broad and very precise definitions hold some connection for their meanings, in politics it comes down more to branding to make ideas seem more palatable rather than truly using the language to encapsulate what the ideas actually entail. IE, I think instead of saying progressive (which will always have a variable meaning depending on the current situation and goals) we should just say socialist (which is a word made and used specifically for political and economic discussion with a more precise and accurate meaning). Lumping in multiple separate concepts under one heading removes a lot of the nuance from something that should really have a hell of a lot of nuance to it. Left and right are the worst offenders here as directions completely lack any sort of connotation. It'd be like calling the movements Purple and Red.

Edited by Jotari
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ok sure, and good point actually, but you're ignoring what its definition currently is. right now, progressive basically does mean socialist.

i agree with you overall. but because of political branding and identity, unfortunately, politics/political language will never be precise... :(

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3 hours ago, Phoenix Wright said:

that's....not what progressive means. not in a literal sense or the political sense.and just to be fair to jotari, this isn't true either. the american political system is not that far right lol. consider from fivethirtyeight (2017):

republicans certainly will have no problem characterising even conservative european states as communist. they think that anything that could be considered social welfare is.

my statement is with that in mind, not that this is an actually true viewpoint.

even so, the people currently in power are republicans, which make up a decent amount of the country in general, the ones with the aforementioned aversion to even milquetoast conservative ideology. i'd say america is skewed pretty right-wing. as to where it will be going in future, that's another matter.

3 hours ago, Phoenix Wright said:

of course, the american right is moving farther right, but the point is our system, our socioeconomic system, is generally referred to as a "mixed economy" rather than a "capitalist" one, much less a laissez-faire one.

i'd argue america is much more accurately described as either corporatism, or just an oligarchy. A mixed economy is not that descriptive when the alternative is laissez-faire.

Edited by Tryhard
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3 hours ago, Tryhard said:

republicans certainly will have no problem characterising even conservative european states as communist. they think that anything that could be considered social welfare is.

my statement is with that in mind, not that this is an actually true viewpoint.

even so, the people currently in power are republicans, which make up a decent amount of the country in general, the ones with the aforementioned aversion to even milquetoast conservative ideology. i'd say america is skewed pretty right-wing. as to where it will be going in future, that's another matter.

i'd argue america is much more accurately described as either corporatism, or just an oligarchy. A mixed economy is not that descriptive when the alternative is laissez-faire.

that's a weird way to frame an argument. it isn't true, so why are you stating it? i'm not concerned with what republican members of congress would say what about anything lol. what is true is that the united states is not that far right.

you'd say that, but it's still incorrect. the statistics say otherwise. i know it certainly feels that way, because trump and his cronies are ruining our image, but voters by and large just don't poll like we'd expect a far-right country to.

if america could be described as "corporatist," then basically any other western, stable country could be too.  calling the us an oligarchy is also alarmist and factually inaccurate--how are other western countries radically different in structure?

our wealth gap and income gap, in addition to our lack of education, are our biggest socio-economic concerns. coupled together, these two things have broken our (representative) democratic system in various ways. closely following those are failing to implement social programs that keep us workers/citizens safe and healthy.

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if calling the US an oligarchy is alarmist and factually inaccurate, then I suppose you would disagree with both Bernie Sanders and Noam Chomsky on what they've said about oligarchy. there's barely any places on earth that are laissez-faire capitalist, if any can be truly called that. Somalia, perhaps?

I don't necessarily disagree, because even self-described conservatives can often be in favour of left-wing ideals - just without wanting to give themselves that label, with perhaps the exception of the death penalty which still holds a majority opinion in the united states. but conservative politics has always dominated the conversation in america. perhaps if voters actually turn out then it would change my opinion, instead of sticking with the republicans when the time comes because the democrats are socialists, apparently.

i'm a little wary about what the US public thinks, though, considering the US public was 80% in favour of the Iraq war at the time. just something to keep in mind.

however, corporations will have more power in america than almost anywhere else. defense contractors get paid by the government to construct excessive weapons even when the Pentagon advises them that they already have enough. billions are giving to corporations for R&D by the government every year - essentially, corporate welfare, which the US is top of the world in, ahead of China. the US eschews workers rights like annual leave and maternity leave that is not neglected in other western countries. a great deal of push is made by republican politicians about cutting corporate taxes, and most democrats don't even want to increase corporate tax.

I'm not going to pretend that other western countries don't have the same problems to some degree, but the US is worse than most in this regard. hence I would call the mainstream politics in the united states skewed to the right-wing. if you're framing this from a populist perspective, then you very well may be right - but there is no representation of these views really, yet, with the republican party pushing so far right that they're in risk of falling off a cliff if they haven't already. 

Edited by Tryhard
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2 hours ago, Tryhard said:

if calling the US an oligarchy is alarmist and factually inaccurate, then I suppose you would disagree with both Bernie Sanders and Noam Chomsky on what they've said about oligarchy. there's barely any places on earth that are laissez-faire capitalist, if any can be truly called that. Somalia, perhaps?

I don't necessarily disagree, because even self-described conservatives can often be in favour of left-wing ideals - just without wanting to give themselves that label, with perhaps the exception of the death penalty which still holds a majority opinion in the united states. but conservative politics has always dominated the conversation in america. perhaps if voters actually turn out then it would change my opinion, instead of sticking with the republicans when the time comes because the democrats are socialists, apparently.

i'm a little wary about what the US public thinks, though, considering the US public was 80% in favour of the Iraq war at the time. just something to keep in mind.

however, corporations will have more power in america than almost anywhere else. defense contractors get paid by the government to construct excessive weapons even when the Pentagon advises them that they already have enough. billions are giving to corporations for R&D by the government every year - essentially, corporate welfare, which the US is top of the world in, ahead of China. the US eschews workers rights like annual leave and maternity leave that is not neglected in other western countries. a great deal of push is made by republican politicians about cutting corporate taxes, and most democrats don't even want to increase corporate tax.

I'm not going to pretend that other western countries don't have the same problems to some degree, but the US is worse than most in this regard. hence I would call the mainstream politics in the united states skewed to the right-wing. if you're framing this from a populist perspective, then you very well may be right - but there is no representation of these views really, yet, with the republican party pushing so far right that they're in risk of falling off a cliff if they haven't already. 

I'd add to this that legal bribery in the form of lobbying seems a lot more influential and accepted in the US than other countries (at least on the face of it, it's hard to even get information about other countries when all the search results talk about the US, maybe that's just general American centralism at work though). Even so, calling the US an oligarchy doesn't mean one is suggesting other countries aren't. I have a hard time imagining any system that isn't an oligarchy underneath it all.

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