Current Affairs The Far Left

[dholliday]

Unsure why you waste valuable time typing up a response to someone who will willfully misrepresent and cherry pick your words and argument at best.

yeah that's the spirit lol

 

[Kiwi]

yeah that's the spirit lol

Don't bother trying to wum me

 

[dholliday]

Don't bother trying to wum me

ok mate x

 

[Kiwi]

ok mate x

You'll just call me a brainwashed member of the liberal elite and obfuscate without responding to any criticism or argument

 

[LinekersLegs]

Unsure why you waste valuable time typing up a response to someone who will willfully misrepresent and cherry pick your words and argument at best, whilst likely underhandedly insulting you while doing so.

 

[BlueToff]

Interesting post, toff.

You're right about this humble Everton forum being arguably the best place to debate politics right now. I guess it's a combination of us being blues (so there's an already an automatic respect for each other despite the odd poking & catfighting) and the mods here allowing a lot of hearty disagreement without stepping in, banning or locking threads.

re: communism-interest amongst youth, why do you think it's dangerous? Are they showing signs of wanting to control speech? Then i can understand your point. But it can be a positive thing if not abused: I used to be involved in London squat party scenes...we had our own communistic ideals (communism doesn't always have to equal fascism ala Soviets, the Kims or DDR)...it worked fine within the confines of an underground all-cooks-no-chiefs movement. It's mostly a youthful idealism which fades a little as most of us end up leaving these scenes to make our way in mainstream capitalist society. But I've still kept some of those ideals, so i will sometimes have conversations with homeless people (to help them feel i regard them as equal members of society to myself), and i'll support fair socialist policies where i see them.

Capitalism, also when not abused...when used moderately, is however a fine fair system which encourages growth and learning.

I hope this polarised internet-driven identity-obsessed outrage culture soon retreats to the shadows...we can refocus on learning about the best bits from communism, socialism and capitalism and grow into something which is fair-minded, is anchored in sober reality and encourages development...we need to refocus soon i think, before the poison gets too out of hand. First step i reckon is to change tactic on Trump: starve the troll of oxygen, focus on strong 2020 candidates, and hopefully return to sanity without civil war breaking out. Like it or not, the US is often a cultural trendsetter for a lot of the world.

The mainstream Left has to do its bit for sanity just as much as the mainstream Right...as both their Far counterparts are no longer fringe.

Maybe it's just my idea of communism that scares me.

I admit, the principle of everyone being equal sounds fair to me. The principle of everybody pulling towards the same goal etc.

But ultimately, I think we already have - in the western world - equality of opportunity, or at least we're nearly there, slowly but surely.

Everyone born in the UK, ultimately has the same opportunities (on the face of it) as anyone else.

They all have the right to an education. They all have the right to free speech. They all have the right not to be harmed. They all have the right to go to University. They all have the right to become anything they want to be.

There's then, obviously, outside factors that come into play. Upbringing, where you're born, where you live, friends and family, financial situation etc etc. But that doesn't change the fact that the opportunity is there to begin with, if you get me.

So I see a lot of people who identify with these communist ideals because they want equality. Well, guess what, equality ultimately breeds inequality and personally, while in some situations it sucks and I do believe the rich should help the poor, if everybody has the same opportunities at birth, then there will be no equal outcome.

It's like the argument for the gender pay gap, another of the left's big arguments.

There was a Jonathan Pie (bare in mind, this is a LEFT-WING comedian) video, basically detailing - in a very clever way - why the gender pay gap is, largely, nonsense, at least in the UK. He was quickly shunted aside by the left, even though weeks before he'd been hailed as a new hero for slating Trump and May (again, like you say, the 'gang mentality' that has always been on the far right slowly creeping its way into the left).

Equality of opportunity = INequality of outcome. It's just the way it is. And it's the fairest way, because that insures that it is down to the individual to make the most of their life/ It doesn't mean I'm playing a blame game. Of course there are injustices, but that doesn't mean you scrap the system that, out of all of them, is the one - with, like you said, a healthy dose of the others - most likely to be sustainable.

Sorry that my thoughts are a bit mixed up. Like I said, I don't really know either way, but I'm interested in putting my thoughts down one way or the other to work through things.

I identify as left wing, in the main, I know that much. But there's certain things I don't agree with and the idea of forced equality scares me, because that's not equality.

 

[BlueToff]

I also think stuff like this is ill-informed



Trump's a tit, but he's not Hitler.

People need to stop bandying that about like some easy tag. There's a difference between being a misogynist, probably a bit racist, scumbag, and a mass murderer.

Most worrying is all these guys have their nice little blue ticks, so they get to feel just that little bit more important than the rest of us.

 

[Blue 1]

 

[dholliday]

Maybe it's just my idea of communism that scares me.

I admit, the principle of everyone being equal sounds fair to me. The principle of everybody pulling towards the same goal etc.

But ultimately, I think we already have - in the western world - equality of opportunity, or at least we're nearly there, slowly but surely.

Everyone born in the UK, ultimately has the same opportunities (on the face of it) as anyone else.

They all have the right to an education. They all have the right to free speech. They all have the right not to be harmed. They all have the right to go to University. They all have the right to become anything they want to be.

There's then, obviously, outside factors that come into play. Upbringing, where you're born, where you live, friends and family, financial situation etc etc. But that doesn't change the fact that the opportunity is there to begin with, if you get me.

So I see a lot of people who identify with these communist ideals because they want equality. Well, guess what, equality ultimately breeds inequality and personally, while in some situations it sucks and I do believe the rich should help the poor, if everybody has the same opportunities at birth, then there will be no equal outcome.

It's like the argument for the gender pay gap, another of the left's big arguments.

There was a Jonathan Pie (bare in mind, this is a LEFT-WING comedian) video, basically detailing - in a very clever way - why the gender pay gap is, largely, nonsense, at least in the UK. He was quickly shunted aside by the left, even though weeks before he'd been hailed as a new hero for slating Trump and May (again, like you say, the 'gang mentality' that has always been on the far right slowly creeping its way into the left).

Equality of opportunity = INequality of outcome. It's just the way it is. And it's the fairest way, because that insures that it is down to the individual to make the most of their life/ It doesn't mean I'm playing a blame game. Of course there are injustices, but that doesn't mean you scrap the system that, out of all of them, is the one - with, like you said, a healthy dose of the others - most likely to be sustainable.

Sorry that my thoughts are a bit mixed up. Like I said, I don't really know either way, but I'm interested in putting my thoughts down one way or the other to work through things.

I identify as left wing, in the main, I know that much. But there's certain things I don't agree with and the idea of forced equality scares me, because that's not equality.

In our Jordan Peterson thread i went into excrutiating detail saying pretty much the same thing you are.

in short: equality of opportunity is laudable and is already here (with some caveats).

Equality of outcome is bad, stunts development and takes away self-agency.

I also think stuff like this is ill-informed



Trump's a tit, but he's not Hitler.

People need to stop bandying that about like some easy tag. There's a difference between being a misogynist, probably a bit racist, scumbag, and a mass murderer.

Most worrying is all these guys have their nice little blue ticks, so they get to feel just that little bit more important than the rest of us.

Also a theme I've banged on about...those upticks he gets for such inane comments is part of this Groupthink 2.0...the 2.0 meaning it's online, and very addictive.

 

[mezzrow]

"...conservatives see an unfortunate world of moral trade-offs in which every moral judgment comes with costs that must be properly balanced. Progressives, on the other hand, seem to be blind to, or in denial about, these trade-offs, whether economic and social; theirs is a utopian or unconstrained vision, in which every moral grievance must be immediately extinguished until we have perfected society. This is why conservatives don’t tend to express the same emotional hostility as the Left; a deeper grasp of the world’s complexity has the effect of encouraging intellectual humility. The conservative hears the progressive’s latest demands and says, “I can see how you might come to that conclusion, but I think you’ve overlooked the following…” In contrast, the progressive hears the conservative and thinks, “I have no idea why you would believe that. You’re probably a racist.”

Or fascist. The label depends on the context.

RTWT

https://quillette.com/2018/03/10/psychology-progressive-hostility/

 

[mezzrow]

I also think stuff like this is ill-informed



Trump's a tit, but he's not Hitler.

People need to stop bandying that about like some easy tag. There's a difference between being a misogynist, probably a bit racist, scumbag, and a mass murderer.

Most worrying is all these guys have their nice little blue ticks, so they get to feel just that little bit more important than the rest of us.

here's the latest (sans blue tick, mind you...):

 

[BlueToff]

here's the latest (sans blue tick, mind you...):

Christ

Then he bangs on about sarcasm. Thing is, why even be bringing it up in the first place.

 

[BlueToff]

What I have noticed is that people love to moan, and actually do very little about it.

 

[davids]

I'm angered by Corbyn spouting his pseudo-socialist tripe,while he sits in the back of his chauffeur driven car with his million plus pension pot and the 2015 7k rise that he pocketed while some of his Labour colleagues (too few sadly) donated theirs to charity....does this make me Far Left?

 

[Prevenger17]

I hate the terms "left" and "right", as if the spectrum of human thought and opinion can be sub-divided into two clean categories. People who have 100% conviction in their own simple opinions about human thought and society should have a good hard look at themselves