30-10-2003 10:14									#61
	Support Apolyton, buy Civilization: The Boardgame

quote: Originally posted by Fez Hey I am no extremist nutcase... wanna know some places where I am not so conservative in? Gay rights... for one... umm... that's all I can think of...

You're right Fez. You're not extremist.

Bush on the other hand...

	30-10-2003 10:45									#62
	Inflate your Upload Space

quote: Yeah, those left wing Founding Fathers.

Actually, yeah, Berz . They fought against the conservative monarchy of the time. For the late 1700s, they were pretty lefty.

quote: I don't know. Maybe because Rawls has something more to say than a soundbite? Since when is prefering Hannity and Colmes to substantive argument a preference one admits to without embarrasment?

Rawls may have something to say more than a soundbite, but that doesn't mean he's correct. The Cable News networks use the jargon which is accepted by mainstream American pundits. When Paul Wellstone is called a 'Liberal' it is because in the American parlance he is a liberal.

And yeah, I'd probably listen to Bill Schneider on what political terms mean in American over Rawls. The ivory tower doesn't define things for the rest of the country, believe it or not .

quote: Other than right wing religious fanatics who has even a half-articulate* opposition to gays having equal rights?

How many viable Democrat candidates have come out and said they support gay marriage for the entire country?

	30-10-2003 11:06									#63
	Support Apolyton, buy Galactic Civilizations: Deluxe Edition

quote: Actually, yeah, Berz . They fought against the conservative monarchy of the time. For the late 1700s, they were pretty lefty.

Hmm...so opposing autocrats is left wing? Castro was a left winger when fighting the revolution but he became a right winger once he was the autocrat in charge? I think I'm getting it now. Would the Founders still be considered left wing in today's politics?

	30-10-2003 11:09									#64
	Support Apolyton, buy Call to Power 2

quote: Originally posted by chegitz guevara From left to right: radical - progressive - liberal - moderate - conservative - reactionary A radical liberal makes as much sense as a reactionary moderate.

Ming: Technically Che is right about this. Of course you could try to subdivide each section and doing so you could get such outlandish catagories as a Radical Reactionary but I think such subdivisions of subdivisions is taking things a bit far.

	30-10-2003 11:10									#65
	Enter the AD-FREE zone

quote: Hmm...so opposing autocrats is left wing?

Back then... yes. Colonial revolution just wasn't done. Revolution itself was rare, and mostly to just establish a new Prince.

quote: Castro was a left winger when fighting the revolution but he became a right winger once he was the autocrat in charge?

Actually, you can make this case. He was a leftwinger while fighting the revolt, then he came in charge and after a decade or so became pretty conservative. Conserving, of course, his original plan he put in place. If you consider conservatism to only be on the right wing, then you may have a pretty good argument that Castro of 2003 is a right winger. He wants to 'conserve' his original revolution.

quote: Would the Founders still be considered left wing in today's politics?

Not at all.

	30-10-2003 11:16									#66
	Support Apolyton, buy Galactic Civilizations: Deluxe Edition

quote: Originally posted by chegitz guevara Yes, the Republicans are treating the military like crap.

Sadly I also have to agree with this. Bush campaigned on a platform of cutting the militaries over seas commitments yet he never cut a single overseas commitement. Even before 9/11 he could have cut back in Bosnia or Kosovo or Germany or Japan or any other of a half dozen places yet he never did. Its true that 9/11 forced us into Afghanistan as well as those former Soviet Republics which had been inflitrated my Arab fundimentalists but keep extending on every front while refusing to cut back in places like Germany, Japan, the UK, Turkey, or the other stable countries which don't need us is folly.

I'm in the IRR which means I'm the last group they call before activating a general draft yet Bush is routinely call up people in the IRR (the normal reserves were long ago exhosted) and he's taken the average deployment length from 8 months to 18 months. He's horribly mismanaged our country's military just as he's horribly mismanged our country's financies.

	30-10-2003 11:20									#67
	Got spare money?

Bush is treating the war on terrorism the same way 16th century Spain treated it's war against the Reformation. He's attacking symptoms yet leaving the causes untouched. He's wasting huge amounts of resources just to get temporary gains. Like Spain we will find ourselves bankrupted by militerism without end.

We should prioritize terror suspects according to their threat level and not just according to Bush's own family vendettas. There were several reasons to invade Iraq but terrorism was always a tanmgential issue; you can tell this is truye by the way the Bushite shopped around looking for a reason to justify their invasion policy instead of simply stating a reason and sticking to it.

	30-10-2003 11:39									#68
	Support Apolyton or Terrorists Win

quote: Originally posted by The Templar

Templar attack the argument and not the man. If he is a nut case then it will be apparent to most people and you'll look better by not dirtying your hands by getting involved in name calling.

All a reaonable person has to do is keep working on the arguments and the audience will figure out who is more credable.

	30-10-2003 11:39									#69
	Put an end to popups!

quote: Not at all.

So why is the notion of re-legalising drugs a left wing idea when in your opinion the Founders who never enacted such a policy would be considered right wing today?

The idea that government should have the authority to decide what we all can or cannot ingest is extremely left wing, even fascistic or communistic. I mean, you can't get more autocratic than that...

	30-10-2003 11:43									#70
	Support Apolyton, pre-order Civilization IV

quote: So why is the notion of re-legalising drugs a left wing idea when in your opinion the Founders who never enacted such a policy would be considered right wing today?

They'd be right wing in some areas and left wing in others. However, their right wing beliefs (size of government) would overshadow their left wing and result in them being called right wing.

Legalization of drugs is solely a left-wing idea because it is against the established tradition (tradition being the bastion of the right wing).

quote: The idea that government should have the authority to decide what we all can or cannot ingest is extremely left wing

Except when Jerry Falwell and Pat Robertson advocate it . Then it is extremely right wing (ie, social conservatism... close to reactionarism).

Oh, and Fascism is extreme right wing ideology .

	30-10-2003 11:45									#71
	Support Apolyton buy from Amazon

quote: Other than right wing religious fanatics who has even a half-articulate* opposition to gays having equal rights?

Depends on what you mean by equality.

	30-10-2003 12:32									#72
	Increase the size of your Attachments

quote: Legalization of drugs is solely a left-wing idea because it is against the established tradition (tradition being the bastion of the right wing).

So then it was a right wing idea when drugs were legal. Left and right are meaningless if these terms depend on what is or is not tradition, especially when tradition changes so easily. It seems to me that if legalised drugs was a right wing idea, it remains a right wing idea no matter what happens in the future. Heck, we now have a federal bureau of education, Social Security, Medicare, etc., which have become "traditions". Does that mean the conservatives in this country who want to abolish these programs are left wing?

quote: Except when Jerry Falwell and Pat Robertson advocate it . Then it is extremely right wing (ie, social conservatism... close to reactionarism).

I'd call these guys left wingers, their support for prohibition is anti-capitalism, anti-freedom (including religious freedom), and pro-big government. If that's right wing, why are left wingers anti-capitalism, anti-freedom, and pro-big government too?

	30-10-2003 12:44									#73
	Remove this text

Oops, forgot this:

quote: They'd be right wing in some areas and left wing in others. However, their right wing beliefs (size of government) would overshadow their left wing and result in them being called right wing.

But what is it about their views that make them right wing in some areas and left wing in others? They obviously believed in economic freedom (aside from slavery of course) so do legalised drugs violate that belief? No. They wanted government strictly limited to certain well-defined areas. Do legalised drugs contradict that position? No. Legal drugs is in accord with their overall ideology, not an aberrant left wing belief surrounded by right wing ideas. If anything violates their overall ideology, it was slavery and their views on homosexuality. In fact, if we look at world history, drug prohibition was always a product of autocratic regimes whether it be tobacco in Turkey or chocolate in Mexico under the Catholic Church. Those governments that outlawed drugs were totalitarian in nature, and usually religious. The 20th century is when the west became even more autocratic under the Fabian socialists...

	30-10-2003 16:52									#74
	Remove this text

btw, the white house finally put out a statement saying that although it was the idea of the crew to put up a banner that said mission accomplished, the white house was the one that did put it up and design it.

	30-10-2003 17:21									#75
	Support Apolyton

The Bush White House accepted responsibility for something? That is news.

	30-10-2003 17:30									#76
	Support Apolyton, buy Civilization 2

quote: They obviously believed in economic freedom (aside from slavery of course) so do legalised drugs violate that belief?

That's a pretty big aside. To have the state enforce the total subjagation of millions of people much takes away a tremendous amount of freedom in society. If the amount of freedom in a society determines how far right the political system is, and if the founders are right-wingers, then the most totalitarian states of the 20th century (i.e. Stalinist Russia) could also be considered right-winged.

	30-10-2003 17:57									#77
	Support Apolyton, buy Alpha Centauri

quote: Originally posted by Q Cubed btw, the white house finally put out a statement saying that although it was the idea of the crew to put up a banner that said mission accomplished, the white house was the one that did put it up and design it.

Yeah, right. So Bush and the boys are saying it wasn't our stupid idea. They were just trying to help those deserving, patriotic sailors. What a load of BS. The Bush administration keeps digging themselves deeper and deeper.

It's bad enough that American troops have to pay with their lives for the idiocy of the Bush administration, but now the Bush boys are trying to pin their political mistakes on the troops.

Disgusting.

	30-10-2003 18:16									#78
	Browse Apolyton AD-FREE

quote: Originally posted by Oerdin Templar attack the argument and not the man.

I couldn't find a 'falling out of a helicopter smiley ...

You criminal!

	31-10-2003 00:37									#79
	Put an end to popups!

In my view, the left-right divide has to be broken down by issue or at least category of issues. Among these issues are

1) Political freedom: Whether the people get to vote directly on issues, vote for representatives of their choice, vote for representatives of the government's choice, don't get to vote at all because the governnment is under the control of an oligarchy, political party or a monarchy.

(On this spectrum, I am on the extreme left. I really like having the people directly vote on issues and almost resent having a legislature imposing new laws and taxes. I think we could operate quite well if we had only the executive and judicial branches of government.)

2) Economic equality

The extreme left here requires complete economic equality. The extreme right tolerates extreme differences in wealth with no social safety net.

As well, this issue also affects political freedom as equality cannot be achieved without totalitarianism and extreme differences in wealth usually leads to oligarchy.

(I tend to be in the middle here.)

3) The right to privacy and personal rights, including the right to practice or not practice religion of one's choice

On the left, individuals have the right to do anything (drugs, sex, religion) so long as it does not immediately hurt another individual. Abortion, of course, is about whether the fetus is another individual. Also, such rights cannot be removed except through due process. On the right, individuals have no right to privacy, and big brother can control everything you do at all times. The fascists liquidated the aged, handicapped and insane. The communists force abortions, liquidate their political opponents, deny religious freedom and generally do not recognize any right to privacy or personal rights. I think both fascists and communists are on the right here. Certainly they deny freedom of religion to people, just as much as a Islamic country denies such freedom to non Islamic religions.

(Here I am on left.)

4) The right of ownership of property

Here, the spectrum is from no property rights, to recognization of personal property rights, to the recognition of real property rights. The far right would deny any right for even the government to control or effect property rights.

(On this issue, I am on the right, but recognize the right of the government to regulate the use of property.)

5) The right of association, contract and exclusion (free market vs. planned economy)

The right would allow complete freedom of contract, association and exclusion. The left would ban all forms contract, association and exclusion. Socialists, Communists and fascists are on the left here in that deny freedom of contract and association. The extreme right would permit monopolization, contracts in restraint of trade, unrestrained union power, as well as all white country clubs and the like.

(I tend to be in moderate right here because I approve of restraints on the power of unions and the right to monoplize or contract in restraint of trade, but I totally reject the communist/socialist approach of denial of the freedom to contract.)

6) Race/tribe/nationalism

The left recognizes the equality of races and denies priviliges based upon raical or tribal identity. The right says my tribe or race is the only one that has rights. Countries like Germany and Japan are even today nationalistic. Ditto Israel. The United States may today be the most equalitarian country in the world where once we were not.

Here, I am on the left as I think the modern US approach is the best.

I don't think there is a left-right breakdown on foreign policy. The world aligns fairly much along its interests.

	31-10-2003 00:52									#80
	Full PM-box? Change here!

quote: Originally posted by Berzerker Hmm...so opposing autocrats is left wing? Castro was a left winger when fighting the revolution but he became a right winger once he was the autocrat in charge?

quote: Would the Founders still be considered left wing in today's politics?

It depends. Some could definately be conisdered at least liberal by today's standards. Many of the people who fought the revolution could defiantely be considered lefties, as the leveling impulse was very strong among them.

	31-10-2003 02:46									#81
	Increase Your PM Length

Che, are you more of an SDS'er or a communist?

	31-10-2003 02:55									#82
	Help yourself to an AD-FREE life

quote: Originally posted by Ned Che, are you more of an SDS'er or a communist?

Don't you think that's really a question for a seperate thread?

	31-10-2003 02:59									#83
	Avatar Enlargement: We've got the solution

Maybe, why don't you start one. However, I note you come from Chicago (where I went to school at the height of the SDS movement). The SDS movement seemed centered in Chicago and there must be large numbers of them still around that have no place to go except the communist party.

Out here in Santa Cruz, the left is dominant. They all seem to me to be SDSers, not communists.

	31-10-2003 03:08									#84
	Tired of ads?

I've already started four in the past two days. Can't start another 'till tomorrow.

	31-10-2003 03:10									#85
	Support Apolyton, pre-order Civilization IV

quote: Originally posted by Ned The SDS movement seemed centered in Chicago

Ahem... Ann Arborites might have a little something to say about that...

	31-10-2003 04:46									#86
	Support Apolyton buy from Amazon

quote: Left and right are meaningless if these terms depend on what is or is not tradition

Well then you think it meaningless, because that is how it arose . The socialists in the French General Assembly sat on the left, the monarchists on the right. Left-right means opposition or support of tradition. This is why the 'right' in the US backs capitalism much more and why 'right' in many European states can be monarchist.

That's just the way it is.

quote: It seems to me that if legalised drugs was a right wing idea, it remains a right wing idea no matter what happens in the future.

Does that mean that you believe that capitalism is left wing? After all, it arose as a lefty idea against the right wing idea of monarchism.

quote: Heck, we now have a federal bureau of education, Social Security, Medicare, etc., which have become "traditions". Does that mean the conservatives in this country who want to abolish these programs are left wing?

We call those who want to go back to the 'way things were' (ie, abolish programs) back to old traditions as reactionaries, which is as far right as you can get.

Legalized drugs was never a 'tradition'.

quote: I'd call these guys left wingers

Yes, and then you get laughed out of the room for calling Falwell and Robertson lefties. There is a reason they are called the Christian Right.

quote: drug prohibition was always a product of autocratic regimes

Yep, and for most of human history the world was littered with autocratic regimes... most of them on the right. Such as the Catholic Church in the 1400s, perhaps the largest conservative, right winged organization of all time.... at least in the Western world

	31-10-2003 06:28									#87
	Avatar Enlargement: We've got the solution

Ramo -

quote: That's a pretty big aside. To have the state enforce the total subjagation of millions of people much takes away a tremendous amount of freedom in society. If the amount of freedom in a society determines how far right the political system is, and if the founders are right-wingers, then the most totalitarian states of the 20th century (i.e. Stalinist Russia) could also be considered right-winged.

But roughly half the states didn't have slavery.

Imran -

quote: Well then you think it meaningless, because that is how it arose .

Yup, seating arrangements in some assembly 200 years ago don't reflect the left-right ideology of today. Many Europeans may have a different view of left-right but I live in the US where we have our own history.

quote: The socialists in the French General Assembly sat on the left, the monarchists on the right. Left-right means opposition or support of tradition. This is why the 'right' in the US backs capitalism much more and why 'right' in many European states can be monarchist. That's just the way it is.

Is the "right" in these European states anti-capitalism and pro-socialism as much or more so than the "left"?

quote: Does that mean that you believe that capitalism is left wing? After all, it arose as a lefty idea against the right wing idea of monarchism.

You just said the French left were socialists so how could capitalism be left wing based on where these people sat? Were the monarchists pro-socialism? It seems they were more capitalistic than socialistic although I believe mercantilism was still being practiced.

quote: We call those who want to go back to the 'way things were' (ie, abolish programs) back to old traditions as reactionaries, which is as far right as you can get. Legalized drugs was never a 'tradition'.

Drugs were legal in the US for more than half it's history, so I'd call that a tradition. Was alcohol prohibition left wing since it was a break with tradition?

quote: Yes, and then you get laughed out of the room for calling Falwell and Robertson lefties. There is a reason they are called the Christian Right.

The underlying principle of their ideology is left wing, and they are called the Christian right by many on the left who don't like their anti-personal freedom agenda. You seem to think political opponents are by definition on opposite sides of the political spectrum when in fact they can be on the same side and just have different desires. Just look at the Dems and Repubs, the budgets passed by both shows there just isn't much of a difference between the two, yet they paint this picture of a left-right struggle.

With my linear spectrum autocrats are at the end of the left wing and anarchists are at the right end. Would you consider Falwell and Robertson more autocratic than anarchist?

quote: Yep, and for most of human history the world was littered with autocratic regimes... most of them on the right. Such as the Catholic Church in the 1400s, perhaps the largest conservative, right winged organization of all time.... at least in the Western world

If the Catholic Church was/is a right wing institution, why does your spectrum have autocrats on both wings?

	31-10-2003 06:56									#88
	Support Apolyton or Terrorists Win

so like, i thought we were discussing seamen.

and anybody who isn't a moderate is still wrong.

	31-10-2003 07:24									#89
	Support Apolyton

quote: But roughly half the states didn't have slavery.

So if I start rounding up CEO's, taking their money, and enslaving them, I'd be a far-rightwinger(since the proportion of CEO's in today's population is much, much lower than the proportion of slaves in the early US). Sweet.

	31-10-2003 08:35									#90
	Tired of ads?

But roughly half the states didn't have slavery.