Critical Race Theory?

[Kooky]

You presume too much about my stances. As for leftists being straightforward, really? My experience is that leftists tend to be very evasive about the stances they take.

Well, your response has already shown that your anti-leftist agenda wasn't a mere presumption. There's also the indicator of your go-to source for "free speech" issues being a right-wing think tank with an explicitly anti-leftist agenda.

As for things like whistleblowers - yours is an excellent point!

Then why do you completely veer off it into territory that has nothing to do with it?

But zooming out, my general stance is that most of us RFers probably fall pretty close to "moderate left leaning".

From my point of view, most RFers seem to be conservatives and centrists, with a sizable number of right-leaning posters leaning from religious conservatives to actual fascists and white supremacists. I suppose for most Americans that would pass for "moderate left leaning".

The leftmost members who are disproportionally active tend to be social democrats or liberal centrists, which I suppose in American terms would be dangerously radical leftism, merely one step removed from Pol Pot.

So debating the tactics of the right seems uninteresting. OTOH, I think we ought to also be concerned about the far left going too far. That seems like more interesting fodder for RF.

By "far left", I assume you mean the mildly social democratic wing of the US Democratic Party à la Sanders or AOC, rather than the completely nonexistent influence of actual communist or anarchist movements in American society.

 

[icehorse]

Well, your response has already shown that your anti-leftist agenda wasn't a mere presumption.

I would say I have an "anti-extremist" agenda. That agenda applies to both the left and the right.

 

[Saint Frankenstein]

From my point of view, most RFers seem to be conservatives and centrists, with a sizable number of right-leaning posters leaning from religious conservatives to actual fascists and white supremacists. I suppose for most Americans that would pass for "moderate left leaning".

Seriously? You must be posting on a version of RF that exists in an alternate reality. We have threads of RF'ers taking political polls and tests about their ideology, and the majority rate as leftist or liberal. Conservatives were being treated so badly over the past year on this board, the staff opened a thread or two to talk to us all about it on the board.

 

[icehorse]

Then why do you completely veer off it into territory that has nothing to do with it?

Whistleblowers are an excellent topic, please take "yes" for an answer. But there are many topics. If you want to start a thread on whistleblowers, I'm in!

From my point of view, most RFers seem to be conservatives and centrists, with a sizable number of right-leaning posters leaning from religious conservatives to actual fascists and white supremacists. I suppose for most Americans that would pass for "moderate left leaning".

You could be correct as to the percentages. I don't really think about debating those folks in political discussions. I'm far more interested in getting moderate left-leaners to work together better.

By "far left", I assume you mean the mildly social democratic wing of the US Democratic Party à la Sanders or AOC, rather than the completely nonexistent influence of actual communist or anarchist movements in American society.

Not at all. Conceptually I'm a fan of universal health care and the GND and such. (I might argue some of the details.)

OTOH, there are a collection of ideas - perhaps they fall under the broad term of "social justice" or "woke" or ?..

That's the far left I'm talking about, the "woke".

 

[Kooky]

Not at all. Conceptually I'm a fan of universal health care and the GND and such. (I might argue some of the details.)

OTOH, there are a collection of ideas - perhaps they fall under the broad term of "social justice" or "woke" or ?..

That's the far left I'm talking about, the "woke".

So you consider LGBT and racial issues extremist in nature? "Far left" to me implies extremism.

 

[icehorse]

So you consider LGBT and racial issues extremist in nature? "Far left" to me implies extremism.

I don't think the issues themselves fall into a left or right category, I think that HOW the issues are discussed and handled often falls into categories.

 

[Kooky]

I don't think the issues themselves fall into a left or right category, I think that HOW the issues are discussed and handled often falls into categories.

And you think a company telling its employees to adress LGBTQ people respectfully would be pursueing an extremist far left agenda.

 

[icehorse]

And you think a company telling its employees to adress LGBTQ people respectfully would be pursueing an extremist far left agenda.

No, I think you're strawmanning me

 

[Kooky]

No, I think you're strawmanning me

No, that was literally what your last thread on the issue was about.

 

[Revoltingest]

No, I think you're strawmanning me

Sometimes it's the only way to win an argument.

 

[Kooky]

Seriously? You must be posting on a version of RF that exists in an alternate reality. We have threads of RF'ers taking political polls and tests about their ideology, and the majority rate as leftist or liberal. Conservatives were being treated so badly over the past year on this board, the staff opened a thread or two to talk to us all about it on the board.

Sure, from the perspective of a right-wing extremist or religious fundamentalist, a lot of this board would look radically leftist, as even mild secularism would qualify for that label from that point of view.

Needless to say, I'm not of the school of thought that considers all of centrism, liberal conservativism and fascism left-wing ideologies, nor do I take it seriously when adherents of these ideologies self-identify as "left leaning".

 

[Friend of Mara]

tricky topics these.

I consider myself a classical liberal, and I worry about extremism from the right and the left. It's sad for me to hear that defense of free speech is seen by some to be a conservative value

Fear not! Free speech isn't a specifically conservative value!
Though the only ones I know of that use "free speech" as a blunt weapon for obviously ulterior motives seems to come exclusively from conservatives.

 

[Kooky]

In our post-modern liberal society, "classical liberalism" has become a thoroughly conservative ideology. Conservativism centers around preservation of the status quo, and that status quo is infused and permeated with the tenets of classical liberalism: Propertarianism, the fiction of equality in spite of vast inequalities, and latent hostility towards labor and the lower classes.

 

[icehorse]

In our post-modern liberal society, "classical liberalism" has become a thoroughly conservative ideology. Conservativism centers around preservation of the status quo, and that status quo is infused and permeated with the tenets of classical liberalism: Propertarianism, the fiction of equality in spite of vast inequalities, and latent hostility towards labor and the lower classes.

That doesn't sound like a common definition at all. where did THAT come from?

 

[icehorse]

Fear not! Free speech isn't a specifically conservative value!
Though the only ones I know of that use "free speech" as a blunt weapon for obviously ulterior motives seems to come exclusively from conservatives.

That's a scary perspective, yikes!

 

[Revoltingest]

That doesn't sound like a common definition at all. where did THAT come from?

I see classical liberalism this way...
Classical liberalism - Wikipedia
...which sometimes comports with, & is sometimes
at odds with conservatism.

Some excerpts I like....
"Classical liberalism is a political ideology and a branch of liberalism that advocates civil liberties under the rule of law with an emphasis on economic freedom."

"Core beliefs of classical liberals included new ideas—which departed from both the older conservative idea of society as a family...."
Ugh....family....those things are the worst.
Sometimes no choice in whom you get.

"... government had been created by individuals to protect themselves from each other and that the purpose of government should be to minimize conflict between individuals..."

 

[Stevicus]

In our post-modern liberal society, "classical liberalism" has become a thoroughly conservative ideology. Conservativism centers around preservation of the status quo, and that status quo is infused and permeated with the tenets of classical liberalism: Propertarianism, the fiction of equality in spite of vast inequalities, and latent hostility towards labor and the lower classes.

This is true, although strictly speaking, when we talk about Western democracies, the status quo has been that of liberalism. Indeed, both liberals and conservatives in the U.S. claim to believe in basically the same things when it comes to core values, such as Freedom of Speech, Freedom of Religion, and so on.

There's very little argument or debate over those issues, in and of themselves, since both sides claim to fervently believe in them. Instead, both sides tend to focus on finding examples and evidence which would indicate the other side isn't following those principles or practicing what they preach.

It seems to be reflected in how people tend to argue politics in general.

 

[Kooky]

This is true, although strictly speaking, when we talk about Western democracies, the status quo has been that of liberalism. Indeed, both liberals and conservatives in the U.S. claim to believe in basically the same things when it comes to core values, such as Freedom of Speech, Freedom of Religion, and so on.

There's very little argument or debate over those issues, in and of themselves, since both sides claim to fervently believe in them. Instead, both sides tend to focus on finding examples and evidence which would indicate the other side isn't following those principles or practicing what they preach.

It seems to be reflected in how people tend to argue politics in general.

My point is that while liberalism is a coherent, consistent ideology and set of political practices, conservativism is a somewhat moving target, with the only real core to all conservative movements being the preservation of the status quo and its social hierarchies, and a harkening to halcyon days when these things were still arranged correctly. The actual nature of these social hierarchies and the actual halcyon days conservatives are harkening to are moving targets that change with the passing generations and the peculiarity's of each country's social arrangements.

For this reason, many traditional US conservatives take positions that are essentially borne out of classical liberal ideology, because that is the foundational ideology of much of modern America's political system, and is part of the status quo that conservatives of this generation very much would like to preserve.

Progressivism is the reverse side to this - much like conservativism, it is a moving target based on what the current generations of a specific country considers to be the pressing issues to move into the future.

So what you then get in a dualist political system like the US one, are two parties whose ideologies are founded on classical liberal principles - one conservative, and one progressive. "Rightism" and "leftism" in this political context then means very little, except for which side of that dualistic coin one feels oneself drawn towards - conserving the status quo, or attempting to improve upon it while adhering to the same ideological foundation.

As for myself, I don't consider myself part of that system, and I don't find classical liberalism a particularly compelling ideology in light of its many failures and hypocrisies. "Freedom of speech" in liberal terms is the freedom of capitalists to controll the narratives of public discourse, "freedom of movement" means the freedom of goods and services to be moved where capitalists want them while the movement of individuals remains arbitrarily restricted for "security reasons" and racism, and "free trade" has created the gig economy which forces the majority population to compete against one another under the control of megacorporations and a handful of multibillionaires while wages are plummetting and social security is being dismantled around the globe.

 

[icehorse]

As for myself, I don't consider myself part of that system, and I don't find classical liberalism a particularly compelling ideology in light of its many failures and hypocrisies. "Freedom of speech" in liberal terms is the freedom of capitalists to controll the narratives of public discourse, "freedom of movement" means the freedom of goods and services to be moved where capitalists want them while the movement of individuals remains arbitrarily restricted for "security reasons" and racism, and "free trade" has created the gig economy which forces the majority population to compete against one another under the control of megacorporations and a handful of multibillionaires while wages are plummetting and social security is being dismantled around the globe.

I have an ongoing challenge for anyone to come up with a societal problem that oligarchs don't either create or exacerbate. We're on the same page when it comes to the evils of capitalism as it has run amok.

But, like any complex, man-made machine, we should understand that economic systems ALL need constant monitoring and tweaking to stay in good working order. ANY economic system left to run on it's own will quickly run into a ditch. I think some form of capitalism is our best bet. But we have to stay on top of it, as we ought to do with any economic system.

I consider myself to be a "classic liberal" and by that I mean things like affordable healthcare for all, protection for workers (e.g. unions, livable minimum wages), good stewardship of our ecology / environment, a tax system similar to what the U.S. had in the 40s and 50s, a defanging of corporations, a strong infrastructure, high quality, affordable education, and so on.

 

[Kooky]

I have an ongoing challenge for anyone to come up with a societal problem that oligarchs don't either create or exacerbate. We're on the same page when it comes to the evils of capitalism as it has run amok.

But, like any complex, man-made machine, we should understand that economic systems ALL need constant monitoring and tweaking to stay in good working order. ANY economic system left to run on it's own will quickly run into a ditch. I think some form of capitalism is our best bet. But we have to stay on top of it, as we ought to do with any economic system.

This is what I like to call the "Good King fallacy" - arguments that major social problems can be solved if only a sufficiently good leader implemented reforms and told us what to do correctly, while leaving the socio-economic foundations that caused these problems entirely intact.

Needless to say, I am not convinced that the exact socio-economic system that has been the primary cause of our current major global problems is going to play any significant factor in bringing about the solution - or even just the mitigation - of these problems. The idea that we're basically fine and our system only needs a few "tweaks" here and there is precisely what got us into this mess.

I consider myself to be a "classic liberal" and by that I mean things like affordable healthcare for all, protection for workers (e.g. unions, livable minimum wages), good stewardship of our ecology / environment, a tax system similar to what the U.S. had in the 40s and 50s, a defanging of corporations, a strong infrastructure, high quality, affordable education, and so on.

Unfortunately, your ideology remains one of the major stumbling blocks to people seeking to affect these changes.