All purpose news and politics thread part VI: This Is Not The Time For Posing

[numberthirty]

A few random examples from different people (note: I am not saying these things are “wrong”, but I consider these opinions to be far left):
- The War on Terror was support for torture
- Stimulus package is/was deflationary or, at most, didn’t/ doesn’t create inflation
- Support for abortion without limits
- Support for trans conversion without limits
- Recognizing that the Nazis were evil and unjustified (which is totally correct) but that Stalin, Pol Pot etc. had a justification/ rationale for mass murder (“to stay in power”)
- “no truly moral human being can have Republican friends”
- Anti police rhetoric
I am sure most folks here do not consider these as "far left" because, well, because they are stuck in a far mentality.

Also, overall attitude of not being able to debate and simply resorting to name calling instead - something very typical of both far right and far left folks who think the world is just black and white.

What is in green...

I'm gonna need to see a direct quote of exactly where such a thing happened.

As for what is in blue?

I gotta say...

Without this really being about taking a swipe at you?

A lot of your takes are like a guy that just waked into a Speedway, and is telling me about how great the nachos look.

I've just got to assume that anyone who thinks the speedway nachos look top notch just doesn't have much in the way of actual perspective.

[babyblob]

I don’t have the time to go back and search for the actual quotes, but the folks who said these know who they are.

You cant make a claim of seeing all these far left crazy things said and then say

"Well I dont have time to go back and quote people and prove my point. Just you know take my word for it."

If you have a point to make and can back it up with quotes and words we have typed take the time to go look. other wise this just boils down to "I am going to say a bunch of stuff. Not work to prove I am right then get upset when I am called out on it."

This boils down to prove it and I will say sorry. or stop putting words in our mouth.

[The Cool Thatguy]

Anyone who thinks anti-police rhetoric is automatically far left needs to look at the Libertarian Party.

Well, they do support cops when they're oppressing black people.

[CSTowle]

The US and China have been in a posturing match China over Taiwan for years. They'll talk shit, then we'll talk shit, back and forth every few months. So far nobody has shown any signs of wanting to actually escalate, but the posturing continues as we're both trying to look strong. It's a bit silly honestly, but at least nobody's getting shot, so whatever.

I agree, but I did think the same thing (and said as much here) with Putin and Ukraine. I thought he'd saber-rattle, look good for his audience (the Russian people) by appearing to stand up to the West, and maybe gain some concessions from the West in exchange for standing down. Hoping the difference in their relative worldwide relevancy/position (Russia on the decline, China rising) means China will be more hesitant to start an incident that might stop or heavily curtail trade. Still, can't trust anymore.

Please use the multiquote function.

Or at least, when you have multiple quick-hit thoughts, do as I do and separate them with a space and list 3-7 in one post.

https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/us/we...830158f0ecaefd

Yikes. Why does that sound like the abuser's perspective, and why does he know the abuser's perspective so well?

My exact thoughts. Extend that to a very young child, "Hey, she thought we were just playing a game. She thought it was innocent, no harm/no foul!" I'd be watching that guy.

The nomination process for President is democratic, small "d". The voters decide who will run from their Party. Biden was the nominee because more voters in more States voted for him, full stop. The old days of smoked fill rooms and Party big wigs picking the candidate are long gone. So when people say the Party should decide who is running now, that just isn't how it works.
Who the nominee in 2024 is will depend on who is running and who the registered Democrats vote for.

While true, they can sure put their thumbs on the scale as shown in 2016 with scheduling debates, use of Party funds, messaging, etc.

Unless you're kidding, you're about to get thrashed. This is mainly a far left/ socialist thread and they are highly protective of all things socialist!

I don't think there are many people expressing anything close to a far left opinion here.

Guardian's right, this is mostly a center-left/conservative Democratic supporting group. There are those further to the left. Sometimes I'm among them, if for no other reason than not being reluctant to criticize the Party I vote for when I feel like they need it out of some delusion that my criticism might hurt their chances or point out something their opponents haven't already considered and messaged against (or exaggerated).

So what do you consider yourself as, in the ideological spectrum? Center-left? Left? Far left? Or you prefer not to categorize your political beliefs into a 'bucket'?

Leftist circles that defend Stalin, Mao, etc. don't really 'exist' in 2022. Of, if they do, they shouldn't. But it's funny you bring that up, because when I mentioned that Stalin/ Mao/ Pol Pot etc. - Communism - killed 100 million people, someone (probably not you) immediately jumped up to "defend" them by saying that they had some form of justification, which Hitler didn't. It's somewhere on this thread.

Regarding my political beliefs (which are what they are, they're not perfect but so aren't yours), at least I don't lack economics knowledge to say - and this was you who said it, if I'm not mistaken - that Biden's stimulus package was "deflationary". So... yeah.

The Churchill (and FDR) statue was an example, I gave various others, but it's interesting that you choose to reduce everything to the Churchill statue, to kind of try to minimize my stance (what do you gain by that? nothing). But do you think it's "social justice" to attack, in this specific example, Churchill's statue? Or to riot and loot cities, for that matter? Do you condemn Antifa, the same way you condemn e.g. the Proud Boys? Or are Antifa nice law-abiding citizens? (not all Antifa are bad, to be clear, and I have nothing against the idea itself)

Worrying about Antifa or bringing up the statue thing tends to be something those further to the right care about, more "Fox News" filler to anger Bubba Joe than actual harmful issues that need to be addressed immediately. While I agree that some statues lionizing the Confederacy were intended as pride in the institution of slavery and should be removed from public display, I also agree with those who say you can go too far by judging some folk by the standards of today (Churchill, Lincoln, Jefferson) and trying to do the same. Antifa may occasionally be counterproductive and mostly self-indulgent (like most protesters) I don't see them trying to steal elections or "standing down, standing by" for a coup. If anything they hate the Democratic Party almost as much as the Republican one.

Yea it's bonkers that people get in trouble for breaking the rules.

It's bonkers that we're in 2022 and they haven't gotten over the marijuana issue. In a land where you can get liquor with ease there's no legitimate reason to treat marijuana differently, other than the fact that people can more easily manufacture it.

[Gray Lensman]

Well, they do support cops when they're oppressing black people.

I can tell you that here in Nevada, the Libertarian Party is pretty anti-cop. I went to the convention in 2017 after leaving the Republican Party (I had been leaning that way for a while, but Trump was the final straw. I think it was only the combination of having both a conservative family and living in the last bastion of sane Republicans that made it take so long) and they were passing out cards for dealing with police questioning.

At least in this state, I think they aren't quite as racist as you might find elsewhere (they openly criticize Ron Paul, practically the patron Saint of the party elsewhere, specifically for his racist attitudes, and decry the very concept of private prisons), even if they still have the small government, all taxation is theft mentality dialed up to 11. Personally I only go up to a 6 or 7, as I understand the philosophy has serious limits.

[Mister Mets]

That isn't how that works. I don't place myself as any kind of 'centrist', and don't represent any kind of broader centrist movement. What I mean is: you don't have particularly well examined political beliefs, and cast a lot of vitriol at 'ideologies', while promoting yourself as 'center left', while espousing way further right fundamental beliefs than I think you realize. This isn't an attack on you, it's a call for you to do some self-examination, because defaulting to 'BuT THe WOkE MoB' and 'everyone is SO FAR LEFT' when things broadly represent a cross seciton of moderately left people in America, with I promise you *very little* representing the actual far left here. We don't exactly have the Stalin apologists or calls to Mao up the Landlords that you see in some leftist circles, nor the actual kind of conversations you see on black twitter that represent *way* further and more active left social justice movements here. No, your idea of the far left is ... some folks who don't like Churchhill and want to take down statues.

This leads to an interesting question of how we define far-left. There can still be degrees within the category of far-left. If we define the far left as the ten percent most progressive individuals (with potentially different answers if we're talking about people worldwide, people in the so-called western world, American citizens or American voters) that will often include some people who don't think we should kill the landlords.

Of course whatever way you use to determine what counts as far-left should also be similar to how you designate someone as far-right. If the ten percent most left-leaning people are far-left, then the ten percent most right-leaning people are far-right. If you pretty much have to be a Stalin apologist to be far-left, then you'd pretty much have to be a Mussolini apologist to be far-right.

All good points. Being "left" or "right" isn't the same in different countries and/or timelines. I'm from the Netherlands and being "left" there isn't exactly the same as here in the UK, let alone US vs. Europe or other parts of the world. Also, while I consider myself centrist or center-left, I don't have a uniform view (e.g. in terms of healthcare and climate change I consider myself "left-wing", but in things like immigration I consider myself "right-wing").

But, of course, to your point - the same way the 'MAGA' folks don't see themselves as "far right", the 'Woke' folks also don't see themselves as "far left". There's plenty of proof of that bias on this thread.

There are some messy questions about what counts as far-left and far-right.
Is it about just about policy or is it also about attitude? In some ways, Trump was moderate. He's against cuts to Medicare or social security, and supports price controls on prescription drugs, rural broadband and other spending. He wholeheartedly endorsed Jeff Van Drew, a former Democrat who switched parties who didn't really have much to distinguish himself from congressional Democrats, aside from voting against impeachment.

Obviously, his rhetoric is extreme and apocalyptic. He's willing to lie outrageously and claim the election is stolen. A question is whether this falls on the left/ right spectrum, or whether it's a different category.

It gets easy to talk past one another if we're arguing about different things. For example, if a Democrat believes that all Republicans are bad people, does this make them far-left, or is that determined exclusively by policy questions?

Another complicating factor is the overlap between holding extreme policy views, and partisan rhetoric. Moderates are more likely to see the good in both parties, just because they're more likely to understand where the other side is coming from. People on the far sides of either party are more likely to endorse aggressive tactics and to hold low opinions of the other side because they'll often think it's catastrophic if the other side wins, they'll be more likely to have blind spots, they're less likely to interact with people who disagree with them and motivated reasoning will encourage them to justify extreme rhetoric.

Theoretically it's possible for someone to be moderate on policy and extreme when it comes to procedures, but that combination is rather rare.

[worstblogever]

Anyone who thinks anti-police rhetoric is automatically far left needs to look at the Libertarian Party.

Or the crowd on January 6th attacking the cops.

[Tami]

Kansas voters reject anti-abortion constitutional amendment

Kansas voters on Tuesday rejected an amendment that would have gotten rid of abortion protections in the state's constitution, the Associated Press reports.

Why it matters: It's the first time since the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade that U.S. voters have cast ballots on abortion.

Bottom line, this shows that Republicans are on the wrong side and that this could mean more losses for Republicans in November.

[AnakinFlair]

It doesn't look like I missed much.

I did hear this on the news, Trump said he endorsed 'Eric' because he doesn't care which Eric wins, he just wants credit for it.

Well, to his relief, it looks like Eric has indeed won the Republican primary in Missouri.

[scourge]

Bottom line, this shows that Republicans are on the wrong side and that this could mean more losses for Republicans in November.

Here's hoping for more losses this November for them and even more in every November afterwards.

[Tendrin]

Kansas voters reject anti-abortion constitutional amendment



Bottom line, this shows that Republicans are on the wrong side and that this could mean more losses for Republicans in November.

Here's hoping for more losses this November and even more in every November afterwards.

Yeah, the anti-abortion measure going down in defeat is a huge backfire.

[worstblogever]

Kansas voters reject anti-abortion constitutional amendment



Bottom line, this shows that Republicans are on the wrong side and that this could mean more losses for Republicans in November.

Here's hoping for more losses this November for them and even more in every November afterwards.

Yeah, the anti-abortion measure going down in defeat is a huge backfire.

In a state as traditionally red as KANSAS... it went down by roughly a 2/3 vote.

Like, how bad would it have been in a blue state?

The Roe ruling could implode Republicans' chances in November, for real.

[CaptainEurope]

meanwhile in Arizona that nut job Lake who is Trump backed and goes full in on the big lie is already claiming fraud in the Arizona Primary. But of course wont site examples because she doesnt want to "Ruin the investigation."

I wonder if she wins if all the sudden the cases of fraud she claims to know about will just disappear as to not throw suspicion on her own win.

Oh, she lost bigly.

Edit: I spoke too soon. Ironically, the ballots counted in the middle of the night, the ones that those people always warn about, have moved her into a narrow lead.

[CaptainEurope]

Another election night highlight from twitter:

90-year-old former Sheriff Joe Arpaio heading for 4th consecutive election defeat in race for Fountain Hills mayor.

[JackDaw]

You cant make a claim of seeing all these far left crazy things said and then say

"Well I dont have time to go back and quote people and prove my point. Just you know take my word for it."

If you have a point to make and can back it up with quotes and words we have typed take the time to go look. other wise this just boils down to "I am going to say a bunch of stuff. Not work to prove I am right then get upset when I am called out on it."

This boils down to prove it and I will say sorry. or stop putting words in our mouth.

I suppose it all depends on definition of “far left”.

But in my mind to qualify as far left, a posting would effectively need to be advocating force and/or terrorism to bring about a fundamental change in society. On that definition I can’t remember a single far left posting on these boards.