You know, I imagine you have to go out really looking for this stuff, because I never seem to come across it unless someone draws my attention to it.
Facebook and the like have brought an awful lot of stupidity into the daylight, but I really don’t think colour, gender, religion or indeed any other variable significantly affects the amount of it, population adjusted of course.
I’m not sure what point you are trying to make (this may be ironic) but, unless that it is that Mark Twain was right about human nature, I’m not sure I want to know.
[quote=“jamesnsc, post:5, topic:82731”]
Is there really a good way out of this?[/quote]
A preemptive nuclear strike against the red states comes to mind.
That’s the thing that I keep trying to get people to think about. I worry less about Trump being elected president than I do about the fact that someone like Donald Trump was even allowed to run without being laughed off the debate stage. When everybody in the room has cut off their own dicks, fried them in oil, and are debating a good wine pairing, it’s a little too late to be going “hey, now- This is getting out of hand”.* About three hours ago was really the point to excuse yourself, lock the door behind you, and set the building on fire.
It’s one of the biggest things that scares me about Hillary, as well- That I don’t trust her to do anything about the underlying issues that led to Trump. I’m seriously terrified that those problems will just fester, and in 4 or 8 years, we’ll end up with someone worse.
*like, this is literally the only analogy I’ve been able to come up with for just how fucked up this situation is, and I still don’t think it manages to capture the level of horrific insanity that is our current political climate.
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Marx was struggling to explain how the route from capitalism to communism could be traversed and he seems to have thrown an ill thought idea into the mix to paper over a crack. That future dictators took him literally is only incidentally his fault, just as Aristotle really can’t be seriously blamed for the way the Schoolmen took his guesses about the nature of reality as being revealed truth.
Incidentally Marx never envisaged a “Marxist” State. He envisaged a Communist society. Both the words you use are incorrect in regards to Marx. Even if someone has not actually read Marx and is just parroting, they should be aware of his idea that the State would “wither away”.
Given your inaccurate exposition of Marxism I’m not sure that our definitions of right and left wing would agree. However, two observations:
- It depends how far back you go since the whole concept of left wing didn’t start until the états-généraux in the 18th century and before that virtually all mass killing was the work of aristocrats (i.e. right wing).
- You need to take relative population into account. Jehangnis Khan is believed to have brought about the deaths of around 10% of the world population at the time.
and then an obvious third observation:
Left wing views assert the unity of the entire human race and the idea of social progress. Genocide due to nationalism or wars of religion is always an expression of a right wing ideology, regardless of what is written on the banners. (Hitler, for instance, pretended to pursue socialist policies until he came to power whereupon they were immediately abandoned. Nobody in their right mind would call the Nazis socialist, because their primary doctrine - pseudo-Aryan nationalism - is contrary to the key tenet of left wing ideas.)
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So how do you define your own social class, its enemies, and how they should be handled?
I grew up communist, and whereas I have read a fair amount of Marx, I consider his thinking to be very much of the era of the industrial revolution. There is no reason to assume that your average street-level lefty is any more beholden to Marx than there is to assume that your average street-level righty reads and parrots Adam Smith.
My own development taught me that “class” is itself (as it tends to be used socioeconomically) a delusory construct, and that economics is mostly quaint rituals of pre-scientific civilization.
Anyway, I see the asymmetry as being that egalitarianism involves trying to control a tiny minority for the greater good, while exploitation involves a tiny minority struggling to subjugate the entire populace. This is why authoritarian systems, no matter their professed ideology, have such enormous body counts. Most leftists are not looking for the next Stalin or Mao to kill some mythical opposition to the common person or send them off to the gulag.
The trick is to not put anybody in power who you can’t fire. To avoid entrenchment. To allow people to associate and help each other without some unproductive parasite/pimp exploiting them in the process. Make government a chore of service to the people instead of an aristocratic privilege.
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That line reminds me so much of the “it’s my turn now” politics we sadly see so much of in sub-Saharan Africa 
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Especially as Adam Smith was no friend to right wing ideas. The Adam Smith Institute is as much about following Adam Smith as the Prosperity Gospel is about following Jesus, and for similar reasons.
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Exactly. And to think she’s the candidate on “the left”! Mind boggling, heart wrenching, soul sickening.
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Well put.
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I was trying to avoid the “C” word, as unnecessarily inflammatory. I understand that Marx used it. I also know that when he wrote about the French Revolution, he very much supported the purging of class enemies, as a necessary step in the ascendancy of the proletariat to assuming political power.
I put Hitler solidly on the side of the Right. I put Stalin and Mao on the Left. I understand that at least the language of right vs left is a late 19th century concept. And the farther back you go in history, the fewer left wing movements you will find. I certainly put the Islamic conquest of India in the “right” column.
And on which side do you put yourself? And why not see Stalin and Mao as dictators who appropriated the populist appeal of leftwing ideology for fascist (i.e., actually rightwing) purposes?
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It was a badly flawed analogy, but one that people have confronted me with when they suggest that I don’t understand capitalism or nation-states. I will concede that Marx is more relevant to leftist thought than Smith really is to the right. The “invisible hand” might just be too tempting a McGuffin for some to leave alone.
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I guess in the traditional sense, I am a class enemy of Marxism because I have a graduate education, and because I am a landowner who has sometimes had employees or tenants. That makes me both an Intellectual and a Kulak, either of which would be a death sentence. I don’t see myself as such, but they are unlikely to ask my opinion. Also, I have close family members who have previously been subject to the hospitality of a communist death camp, so that might also affect my case before the Peoples Tribunal.
I do not personally believe in class enemies, I do not have any. I would strongly oppose anyone who follows an extremist ideology of any sort, who would be likely to round up my children or future grandchildren, and put them in camps.
I have said before, and will repeat, that I am a hardcore, extreme moderate. I have close family who suffered horribly under left and right wing regimes, and recently enough that I grew up listening to the stories, and even my kids did. I do not see Stalin, Mao, Pol Pot, Chavez, Ceausescu, or any of the like as anything but the natural progression of socialist ideals to their logical conclusion. My personal view is that Marxists have fundamental misunderstandings of human nature, and will always be surprised when their worker’s utopia turns into a horrorshow.
I will be happy to explain my views, but this is one subject where nobody is going to change my mind. I am well aware of how good Marxism looks on paper. But the theory never seems to translate into reality. I am unwilling to risk my family in order to try it one more time, hoping to get it right.
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Okay thanks, that explains some things.
And no worries, I at least have not been trying to change your mind.
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I am always happy with civil discourse. Especially in a place where I can express moderate views and not be screamed at as some sort of extremist. I tend to get it from both sides. Even from libertarians, because I support conservation and pollution controls as a function of government.
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But not too hardcore to fly the Wirmer flag.
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After reading this discussion, I’m having serious doubts about the left-right dichotomy.
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That’s largely a matter of perspective. Consider that both graduation and land ownership are themselves hierarchical constructs. Those who don’t subscribe to them might not see them as saying anything about you personally at all.
The practice of “rounding people up” I see as at odds with egalitarian principles.
I think they might cease being a fringe when their candidate wins the party’s nomination. Enough Republicans voted/caucused for this guy, that he got the nomination. I’d say by definition that’s not the party’s fringe. Especially when you consider that most of the other votes went to Ted Cruz, who’s nearly as scary but able to meet basic social norms of interaction.
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I was fairly specific about why I supported that flag. I will not apologize for having connections to the wartime anti-nazi resistance. Since it has been pointed out to me that PEGIDA is using that flag, I have been paying pretty close attention to the flags being used at European nationalist demonstrations. The most common flag seen is the national flag of whatever country the demonstration is being held in, There are also a lot of flags from districts seeking independence, like Catalonia. It is actually kind of a challenge to try to identify the different flags.
I do not really think that the protesters put very much thought into the flags they use at political rallies. I do not think that the North Korean flags seen at Green and DNC rallies in the US are really representative of the ideas of those organizations.
