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When you say "left wing". I assume you use the US political reference, right?
Just so you know, in a lot of places, "US left wing" is further right than the most (non-fringe) right wing party there is.
And as such, the perception of politics in the US goes from "insane but maybe a step in the right direction" to "absolute evil and/or destructive/immoral"
My point, which I'm not trying to make to annoy or offend you, but you might want to reflect on: A lot of what is considered "political left wing" in the US, is "common sense" elsewhere.
So, you running into discussion forums is not necessarily that they are "left wing", but rather not deprived of morality, and share a different set of common sense values of creating a society that is fair, the vulnerable and sick are taken care of, no one is exploited, etc etc. That just happens to be "socialism" according to Americans, and otherwise the full political spectrum in my country as to the nuances on how to best achieve that.
I think the problem here is often not the ideology, but the way people go about it. I'm left-wing but I basically can't stand to talk to other left-wingers about politics as they're so sanctimonious, disrespectful, and hypocritical online. So the problem isn't that a platform is left-wing, but rather that there's left-wingers on it if you follow that logic. Please note I said if you follow the logic, not if you agree with it......before I get dog-piled on for saying something non-flattering about liberals.
Then there's Lemmygrad…
And Hexbear
Yea, it's a problem with most people who're heavily into politics these days I think. They're more concerned with dunking on the people that don't follow their beliefs than they are actually discussing issues. If they run into someone that isn't part of their echo chamber they can't handle it and start throwing insults.
Bingo. This is exactly the issue for me. The militant and intolerant attitudes and name calling. It's deeply disappointing.
This is a weird way to cope with the fact that this place is filled with unbearably smug leftists. There are also a lot of places that are way more right wing than america. I.e. a lot of the muslim world, India, etc... I think it's telling you pretend those places don't exist and I'd argue you have a eurocentric world view.
Give me a break and stop huffing your own farts please.
It depends on the topic. What right-wing views of the Muslim world, India, etc. are we talking about? Women’s rights, other human rights issues aren’t going to go over well in any mainstream western focused site. US right-wing views are just a bunch of bad faith arguments. The smugness is one thing, but we don’t have to be tolerant of intolerance.
There are plenty of good faith arguments on the right, just because you don't agree with them doesn't make them bad faith. I'm sick of that phrase being thrown around at points people personally disagree with. It's made the phrase meaningless.
Find me one that isn’t based on a lie. It’s been a long time since it was just a matter of disagreement. I’m not throwing the term out, it’s true.
Border control is a big one. There is a strong push amongst actual leftists to open our borders completely while simultaneously pushing for serious social programs. I hope I don't have to explain the issue with that. "No Borders, No walls, No deportations at all" and all that.
Another one would be the police abolition movement. I think there is good reason why every functional country on earth has a police force.
FWIW, I agree with you on both points. I also think the right has a huge issue with "bad faith" arguments though (way more so than the left).
e.g. the decade long "replacement for Obamacare" that's so much better and perpetually going to be released just after X. This is before Trump even entered the picture.
I'll give you another example, guns. I think the right has a point that it's a mental health issue, but they're not actually willing to change policies in a way that makes mental health care more accessible, so it's an incomplete solution/there's no way to actually get the job done.
Election fraud is another. I'm all for ensuring elections are done with integrity; however, when the efforts to "fix election fraud" aren't supported by real issues when they enter a court of law (where there's real skin in the game, not just words), and when these efforts are targeted at disenfranchising democrats and changing little in rural areas that's a huge red flag. For a specific example, see 1 ballot box per county during COVID (an urban county with over a million people could have the same number of ballot drop boxes as a rural county with a few thousand). Another example would be the absurdly long polling lines in Georgia and the laws attempting to ban people from even giving folks waiting in those lines water.
Independent state legislature theory was also another hellish policy idea out of right wing think tanks that would allow state house legislatures to outright negate votes (fortunately the US supreme court killed that -- but it should give you an idea for how dirty Republican reps are willing to be and where their moral compass is resting).
i.e., there are potentially interesting policy points in the right's voting base. However, the right's politicians are completely off the rails (and operating in a way that I don't believe any American should support -- both in demeanor and policy).
My honest response to some of these points
I don't think throwing money and psychiatrists is a solution to the mental health problem plaguing society today (declining mental health is an issue far beyond a couple of wackos shooting up a school). Guns are part of American life for a lot of people, it's enshrined in the constitution. Argue about interpretations if you want but that doesn't change the fact that there are people in America who are willing to take the negatives of gun ownership so they can have the positives. People don't like feeling helpless and for some gun ownership is the most important thing when it comes to protecting their family.
The truth is mental health will not improve until material conditions improve. Mental health counseling is not going to do squat to a continuously discouraged populace. I also think "mass shootings" as we know them today are a uniquely modern phenomena that is influenced by the modern media landscape. People idolize going out guns a blazing on their own terms and the media circus encourages the next one. I am willing to live with the consequences of gun ownership if it means I have a gun to protect myself, especially as things go further south.
I do agree that the right does not have many good politicians. I feel a bit politically homeless sometimes because of how bad things are. But the elected officials do not always accurately represent the voting base, we simply vote for who we are supposed to just like people on the left do. I think you have to either be crazy or financially motivated to get into politics in the first place so that really only leaves weirdos. The most successful people on the right are running businesses and feeding their family, not playing the dirty game of electoral politics. I think the left wing politicians are just as corrupt though, but people just look past it because its their side. Check out Nancy Pelosi's amazing stock trading performance as an example.
I know, I have friends with like 30+; I honestly don't care that they have them. I've increasingly seen an appetite from Democrats I know to just drop the damn guns thing. We really don't care about "taking all the guns", we just want people to stop shooting up school buildings and random public events in our cities. I don't think that's a big ask.
Here's where Republicans fall short. They give no potential solutions. If mental health isn't solved by "money and psychiatrists", why not? What will solve "metal health"? There's a fine line between yelling "IDK look over there" and making a quality suggestion. People love to talk about both sides and debates ... but there hasn't been a serious policy debate in this country at the national stage in years because one side decided to start yelling something with the substance of "DDDDURRRRRRRRRRRR DDURRRRRR DDDDDURRRRRR" (typical about "woke", "radical", "socialist", etc) rather than making actual points.
I can't even tell you why Trump's Obamacare replacement plan is or isn't a bad idea, because (again) he never presented one. He just said "there will be one". I don't vote for promised plans, if you want my vote you better have a plan. The Democrats do have (even if flawed) thought out plans; the Republicans (increasingly) don't.
I can't tell you what Trump's plan for this is either, because while you tie the gun and mental health crisis together and link them to the economy, the Republican party as a whole doesn't. There's not a policy position arguing "we're going to solve the gun problem by doing X". Here's the Republican platform for 2016, reused for 2020: https://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/documents/2016-republican-party-platform. I challenge you to find anything in there stating how they're going to address the left's concerns about gun violence.
This is the Democrat platform for 2020, see "Ending the Epidemic of Gun Violence" (and yes it includes a real plan for how to solve the migration/border problem by attacking it at the roots not "building a wall" -- which the cartels just dug tunnels under and cut through): https://democrats.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/08/2020-Democratic-Party-Platform.pdf
You're welcome to disagree with parts of the gun plan, or the plan in its entirety, but it's a starting point. In a functioning Democracy, Republicans would come back with a serious proposal for "here's how to improve this situation in a way that protects gun rights." They have done no such thing. It would be one thing if this was "just" about guns, but it's not, they do this all the time.
This to me is missing the forest for the trees. Sure, there are definitely corrupt politicians on both sides. However, what are they getting done and who are they serving at the end of the day?
https://www.politifact.com/truth-o-meter/promises/biden-promise-tracker/ https://www.politifact.com/truth-o-meter/promises/trumpometer/
Again, Trump promised to "repeal Obamacare and replace it with something so much better" (loose quote). Republicans before him like Paul Ryan made the same bogus claims. They all said "we'll get it out right after we repeal Obamacare". That's not a plan, that's a literal death sentence for some number of Americans (I won't make up an internet statistic). Hell no I'm not voting for that, and I immediately am going to question your motive as a politician for suggesting the moral equivalent of "take the worn tires off the car and only then check to see if there are even any other tires to put on the car" (carrying the metaphor further, people have places to be and things to get done, they don't need you breaking their cars in the middle of their day to day lives with no fix in sight).
Meanwhile, Joe Biden promised to make progress on the country's aging infrastructure and followed through with the infrastructure bill.
I am a policy and action oriented person, and the policies and actions of Republican politicians I find reprehensible and at times completely counter productive.
I'd encourage you (and your friends) to pay attention to the Democrats running in your area, and their actual policy stances. There is variance in the Democrat's platform (especially at the primary stage), and there is an appetite for compromise (they do it constantly, the infrastructure bill was passed because of compromise; it was not everything the majority of the party wanted -- far from it -- but it was what they could get done now). I'm willing to let guns go for other priorities, personally guns are not a "hell no" issue for me, and I know many other Democrats that agree. The country hasn't lost its mind, but the Republican party has, and their false compromise, hostage taking, and political theater is making it REALLY hard to get shit done.
You seem to give the benefit of doubt to Republicans, and then assume the worst of Democrats. We can provide Receipts of Republicans breaking the law, having massive conflicts of interest etc but that's ignored while Gossip about Democrats is treated as cold hard fact. This was rampant during 2016. Look at the Clinton Foundation vs The Trump Foundation. One of those is a real charity, the other is a grift. But the Real one was the one to get heavily scrutinized.
I dislike the republican establishment greatly. They are filled with people just as corrupt as the left. Does that answer your question? The Clinton foundation is far from innocent either, you're not making the distinction you think you are. The Clintons are extremely corrupt, I think an honest person would be able to come to terms with that.
You dislike them, yet you’re repeating their talking points. The GOP is corruption personified. The left isn’t in the same stratosphere. It was the Republicans whose refused to vote on Judges during the Obama administration so they could stack the courts with questionable Judges. It’s the Republicans who fabricate voter fraud with no evidence to pass their voting restrictions that unfairly target legal voters that just happen to vote against them. It’s the Republicans who start up endless investigations without knowing what they are looking for. That’s three odd the top of my head. They’ve been up to it for forty years and recently straight up gave up creating a platform with any sort of governance instead just using wedge issues and fabricated culture war issues to make you think they’re doing anything for you. They aren’t, and they will turn on you the very second it benefits them because. If you haven’t noticed all the old reasonable Republicans are gone. The grifting crazies are the only ones left.
I don’t care to get into another Clinton conversation. I know how this goes. Laundry list of accusations with discredited evidence or implications that go nowhere because the vast majority of them stem from Republican strategists in the 90s who had a vested interest in defeating the Clintons.
Who is saying that? Right-Wing Media? There is no significant movement to completely open our southern border, nor is it something the current administration is demonstrably moving toward. What is happening is right-wing media creating a strawman in bad faith to misrepresent liberals opinions on the southern border. For example, not wanting to build a border wall doesn't not equate wanting an open border. Just like not wanting to buy a Suburban doesn't mean I want to walk to work. The border wall has been a thirty year grift that Republican politicians use to line the pockets of their donors through bloated contracts. Republicans have controlled the Presidency for 12 years over the last two decades. Why wasn't it already done? If you look into it, you'll find significant logistical issues including there being a river and terrain that isn't friendly to construction. There are areas where an existing wall cuts off US Citizen's farms and ranches, and where Border Control can't easily get to. Then there's the topic of Circular migration where preventing some migrants from leaving would double-down on your social services problem you mentioned.
This one again is not in any supported by any politicians or most people. "De-fund the Police" is a poor slogan any way you look at it. Yes, there are people that mean in literally. I can't blame them. The truth is there are areas of this country where the Police act more similar to organized crime than a protection force. This is not literally true the vast majority of the time, but you can't go 2 days without hearing about a situation where there's corruption, or unneeded escalation that causes another civilian death. The movement I'd like to see is to Reform the Police, but that doesn't really sound great in a protest march does it? Police should de-escalate situations, not escalate them. We hear these stories of mentally ill people who are not violent getting shot because someone calls the police to get them help, and the responding officer starts yelling with their gun out making everyone nervous and the mentally ill person gets shot. Or we see stories of overreacting to children, even arresting them for minor disobedience. We see an "us vs them" mentality coming out of the Police where they refuse to hold their own accountable. All of these things should be agreed upon universally imo. I've said this to some Gun-Loving friends before. Why should "he had a gun" be a reason for a cop to shoot you dead without getting your day in court? Last I checked conservatives are way into the 2nd Amendment, so this universal love for the Police, especially when they do wrong is puzzling to me.
I have a lot of leftist friends and they vehemently defend open borders. I remember all the marches during trump era that explicitly said "Immigrants are welcome here". I can obviously only speak from my experience but I think you are underplaying the lefts lack of hard line stance on border control. They actively fight defend illegal immigrants taking American jobs. I think lax border control is a pretty common part of leftist belief in USA as of late.
Same thing goes for the defund police movement. Here are articles reflective of that sentiment at the time https://www.nytimes.com/2020/06/12/opinion/sunday/floyd-abolish-defund-police.html I don't really know how you can deny this line of thought exists in the modern political environment. Don't blame me when all the messaging is "ACAB" and people are yelling "Abolish the police" in their marches. They often argue reforming the police is impossible and that total abolition is the only way forward.
The two things don't really have much to do with another. Nobody likes when the police do wrong. There are obviously nuanced situations where the right may downplay officer misconduct for narrative purposes but that doesn't mean the right wants the police to be a mafia. There are a lot of people on the right who like police but dislike bad policing. I don't think it's that hard to understand.
I can’t take you seriously when you say “leftist” it’s straight out of right-wing propaganda. So I doubt you have “leftist friends” at all. You’re even saying the quiet part out loud. Trump immediately banned everybody from coming into the country from Muslim countries regardless of the reason. I don’t think you understand how difficult the Immigration process is. These people spent all the time and money to come here, were approved and were literally on planes when this happened. That’s some heartless xenophobic bullshit and idk how you could support that.
Migrant workers don’t take American jobs. This has been proven so much it’s not even much of a current Republican talking point. Southern states that have enacted strict immigration laws ended up having farms with no one to harvest as Americans didn’t want those jobs, for they pay that was offered at least. If you’re conflating this with people who immigrate legally taking jobs, that’s a different issue and American companies are the ones you should be mad at. It’s not as simple as you think, often it costs the company a lot and it would have been cheaper to hire an American.
Those protest movements have no elected power. This is a situation where systemic issues in policing really present two different outcomes. If your community was treated the same as the communities that these people are apart of, I’d wager the rhetoric would be similar or even more violent. Anti-Police rhetoric on the right was rampant in the 90s. Current conservatives care more about treating people they don’t like bad, so they are Pro Police every time an incident happens with a black person. We all should be calling for reform when a cop becomes Judge, Jury, and, executioner just because they think the person has a weapon. How 2nd Amendment advocates aren’t just as upset at the police as the community that is victimized by them is extremely telling imo.
You are easily the most bad faith person I've had a discussion with on here so far. I'm just expressing my opinion and you are accusing me of faking having leftist friends for some reason despite knowing that a lot of people hold the views I discussed. Not really worth responding to your novels, sorry.
I’ve run into you in other threads. Your expressed opinions are all conspiracy theories or right wing talking points. Your account is a couple days old. There’s nothing showing me you aren’t a troll. And if you’re not it makes no difference if everything you post is the same. 🤷♂️
I'm someone with different opinions as yourself. That's ok. Move along.
I disagree that those two things have nothing to do with each other.
You have a constitutional right to bear arms right? If so, why does the possibility of you using that right give Carte Blanche to a Police Officer to shoot you dead and get away with it? I always hear that the right to bear arms is about standing up to tyranny… seems relevant to me. When Pro-Gun groups didn’t fight for Philando Castile it became crystal clear they are all full of shit.
It's not really "coping". Other than that, you are right about a lot of points. I am providing a Eurocentric point of view, as you put it. I have no other perspective or insight to share.
US politics are certainly lacking in morality relative to European farts. If listening to 5 seconds of Trump doesn't convince you, or the recent Republican debate... No rational mind or argument will.
"We must eat the billionaires. This is all the fault of capitalism. No wonder that's how they make their profit."
This sort of thing is 'leftist' everywhere.
Yeah, the US version.
No problem, no foul. We good.