https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WfEceJV_USY
A sort of comical take on extremists and where they land on the 3 axis, economy, cultural and state.
I'm a centrist in all 3 ... I think.
While my natural tendency is toward centrism on those 3 axes ... on one axis, traditional vs progressive ... I do tend more toward traditional now.
Economic - regulated capitalism = Centrist
Cultural - this is where I have drifted more toward traditional
Statist - moderate statism = Centrist
He added a Wacky dimension too ... my favorite is Space Commies. That should be very popular here ;-)
No way I'm listening to this sped-up guy for 20 minutes or so. Besides, his views are way too simple. His basic views are "OK". What he ignores is the variations among the groups he defines. One can be a Statist thinking the State will be socially progressive. Or a Liberal who is fiscally cautious. Or whatever combination you can imagine, because there are some of every possible combination.
I recall from one atheist site, a gay guy who just "assumed" that because both atheists and gays were minorities we had to all accept the same ideas. And a nazi atheist who thought the same. Doesn't work that way.
Save me from such people, LOL...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FyWHTsoYPbA
Confuse you some more.
Cavebear .... all liberals are the same on all issues, so y'all can more easily fit in the D-party big tent of Mena AK drug use.
Quote from: Baruch on June 10, 2019, 08:27:26 AM
Cavebear .... all liberals are the same on all issues, so y'all can more easily fit in the D-party big tent of Mena AK drug use.
All liberals are not. And I'm a "Progressive", not a "liberal".
Quote from: Cavebear on June 11, 2019, 02:06:42 AM
All liberals are not. And I'm a "Progressive", not a "liberal".
See the irony? You can't even decide on a common name ;-)
Quote from: Baruch on June 11, 2019, 04:29:04 AM
See the irony? You can't even decide on a common name ;-)
I see a difference. Like you might between "conservative" and "libertarian". To me "progressive" means moving forward while "liberal " means "allowing anything".
Quote from: Cavebear on June 11, 2019, 07:29:16 AM
I see a difference. Like you might between "conservative" and "libertarian". To me "progressive" means moving forward while "liberal " means "allowing anything".
OK. But it isn't as fun to talk this way.
Quote from: Baruch on June 11, 2019, 09:12:14 AM
OK. But it isn't as fun to talk this way.
OK. Sometimes the point is to just discuss.
If I was a straight-forward liberal (and I can put myself in those shoes), I think I would have some basic tenets. Inequality can be fixed by sharing the wealth downwards via taxation. All people should be basically equal and made so by government action. Everything is OK but it not harm others. Business is evil. Government should be totally by majority vote. Others might disagree, but I'm trying to keep things simple here. Hey, I can't describe what I'm NOT as well as I can describe what I am.
I differ a bit as a "Progressive". The solution to poverty is better education with equal resources to all schools. Taxation is for the purpose of defending the land and investing in infrastructure for everyone's general benefit. Those who have more pay more (no one needs a billion dollars). Business is great when they actually compete; breakups are sometimes needed (any industry should have at least 4 serious competitors). Individual competition is good; the best do the best. Representative government is a good thing. Most voters can't tell or are too busy to tell their ass from a hole in the ground about national issues but can send a decent person to Congress they trust to consider those issues on their behalf. Most cities should be run by City Councils or assigned Administrators, not local politicians and Mayors. Science is real and improves our lives.
Hope that makes some sense...
Classic Keynesian/FDR. But they are both dead, so 1940s.
BTW - I realize that taxation is vitally necessary. Failure to tax the plutocrats was a big reason why the Roman Republic failed.
Too bad that whatever the taxation might be, it isn't put to a good purpose.
How about a little Hayek?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0QD75lUm51s
The whole point of winning/surviving WW II, was to achieve greater heights of power and corruption. It had nothing to do with liberty. Liberty died step by step from 1787 onward.
My Czech ancestors fled the conscription and central planning of the Austro-Hungarian Empire in 1874. GB is trying to flee the same from Brussels today. But in the US, we aren't a colony, we oppress ourselves, we don't need an external agent. We are the self-licking ice-cream cone of the world.
Radicalism in the US came multiple times before the 1960s ...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jk0Zo3fx4JM
Ragtime hippies. This one buried in the Kremlin, not married there (Bernie).
Quote from: Baruch on June 12, 2019, 03:27:06 AM
Classic Keynesian/FDR. But they are both dead, so 1940s.
BTW - I realize that taxation is vitally necessary. Failure to tax the plutocrats was a big reason why the Roman Republic failed.
Too bad that whatever the taxation might be, it isn't put to a good purpose.
The whole point of winning/surviving WW II, was to achieve greater heights of power and corruption. It had nothing to do with liberty. Liberty died step by step from 1787 onward.
My Czech ancestors fled the conscription and central planning of the Austro-Hungarian Empire in 1874. GB is trying to flee the same from Brussels today. But in the US, we aren't a colony, we oppress ourselves, we don't need an external agent. We are the self-licking ice-cream cone of the world.
Radicalism in the US came multiple times before the 1960s ...
Ragtime hippies. This one buried in the Kremlin, not married there (Bernie).
Well, Einstein is dead and E still equals MC squared, so the death of a discoverer doesn't end facts.
I can only guess at what your ancestors experienced in Europe. From early Roman times on, it has been pretty brutal there. Mine fled from there in the 1600-1700s from England France and Germany. But I think the Common Market, EU and later ideas have been the best attempt they have made toward peace and stability.
I could go into some detail about why Europe is all broken up and military over the centuries, but that's not the point. The point is that they have been TRYING to create peace since WWII ended.
Europe isn't goijg perfect any more than the US or Asia is, etc. All we can do is try our best to deal with the problems of today. Brexit, for example, is a bad move. But people do sometimes decide to do thinks that are not in their best interest. We ended up with Trump, Europe has Brexit, its all bad.
But this too shall pass away. In a year or 5, Trump will be gone from our lives. In a year, Brexit will be resolved and GB will somehow make peace and trade with the rest of Europe again.
I guess I'm also trying to say that bad things just don't last. 10 years from now, we will look back on Trump and Brexit and say "so what".
The world will have advanced because that's what people do. And that's why I am a Progressive.
No nations have friends, only interests - Charles de Gaulle.
This applies to competing internal interests as much as external rivals.
Quote from: Baruch on June 12, 2019, 11:32:35 AM
No nations have friends, only interests - Charles de Gaulle.
This applies to competing internal interests as much as external rivals.
I think I would phrase that differently. As in "Charles de Gaulle" had no friends though France did. I sometimes think that the worst thing that happened to France was Charles de Gaulle. I mean, just look at his name. If he wanted to be accuratre as a French Leader, he SHOULD have been "Charales De Frank".
But seriously, consider what would have happened if De Gaulle had not demanded to keep Indochina. The US would not have felt obligated to support French colonialism, it wouldn't have been slowly sucked in to the Vietnam War to support the utterly routed French troops there, and when Ho Chi Min asked the US for help in creating a democracy there, we might have agreed.
Ho Chi Min did ask, and De Gaulle demanded we refuse. President Eisenhower made a bad choice there. He liked De Gaulle a a brve General. Hindsight of course, but that's what analysis IS! If there hadn't been De Gaulle, Vietnam (and the rest of SE Asia by default would have gome democratic like Japan. Imagine how the world would be different...
Quote from: Cavebear on June 15, 2019, 05:25:12 AM
I think I would phrase that differently. As in "Charles de Gaulle" had no friends though France did. I sometimes think that the worst thing that happened to France was Charles de Gaulle. I mean, just look at his name. If he wanted to be accuratre as a French Leader, he SHOULD have been "Charales De Frank".
But seriously, consider what would have happened if De Gaulle had not demanded to keep Indochina. The US would not have felt obligated to support French colonialism, it wouldn't have been slowly sucked in to the Vietnam War to support the utterly routed French troops there, and when Ho Chi Min asked the US for help in creating a democracy there, we might have agreed.
Ho Chi Min did ask, and De Gaulle demanded we refuse. President Eisenhower made a bad choice there. He liked De Gaulle a a brve General. Hindsight of course, but that's what analysis IS! If there hadn't been De Gaulle, Vietnam (and the rest of SE Asia by default would have gome democratic like Japan. Imagine how the world would be different...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A-FRvc4n9eE
Yeah, I think the French are mostly wrong, not just De Gaulle. But De Gaulle was right, to prevent GB from joining the Common Market.
Quote from: Baruch on June 15, 2019, 07:14:24 AM
Yeah, I think the French are mostly wrong, not just De Gaulle. But De Gaulle was right, to prevent GB from joining the Common Market.
De Gaulle's intense dislike of the British, who basically saved their "hands-up surrender" nation from complete and utter destruction in 2 wars with the Germans last century has always astonished me. I suppose it is "help-envy". I've always thought the French would have be better off without De Gaulle. Its not like he actually meant anything in WWII. The Allies would have slowly rolled over Germany anyway. And I'm not dismissing French Resistance as beneficiary forces. But I think they acted more alone than De Gaulle would have admitted.
"De Gaulle's unbending pride in the French nation combined with his personal ambition made him a difficult figure to work with for the rest of the western Allies. During preparations for the Normandy invasion, Dwight Eisenhower approached de Gaulle to ask for his formal support. De Gaulle refused to give support as a subordinate of a non-French. "I recognized in him many fine qualities", said Eisenhower. "We felt, however, that these qualities were marred by hyper-sensitiveness and an extraordinary stubbornness in matters which appeared inconsequential to us." While Eisenhower had formed friendship with many leaders among the Allies during the war, the American regretted that de Gaulle's stiff personality prevented a friendship from forming between the two."
From https://ww2db.com/person_bio.php?person_id=68
(https://i.redd.it/gev2vlk8lq331.png)
Quote from: Hijiri Byakuren on June 15, 2019, 08:42:55 AM
(https://i.redd.it/gev2vlk8lq331.png)
I cracked up about that. Obviously sarcasm about rightists...
No, the joke is on the Left, when they propose an extreme action, they claim to be moderates. Also they view anyone to the Right of Lenin to be Fascist.
Yes, the French POV isn't the Anglo-Saxon POV. Never has been. From their point of view, it was Britain, not France, that lost France to the Germans. That France would have won if Britain had committed all of their Royal Airforce (and not kept any in reserve just in case). They also felt that the British demonstrated their perfidy at Oran (in 1940, Churchill had the navy attack half of the French fleet, though no state of war existed). And of course De Gaulle felt he should be treated as an equal to FDR/Stalin/Churchill. So did Chiang Kai-Shek, who was briefly met in Cairo later, when the big three were meeting at Teheran.
https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2018/08/20/how-charles-de-gaulle-rescued-france
Quote from: Baruch on June 15, 2019, 09:26:49 AM
No, the joke is on the Left, when they propose an extreme action, they claim to be moderates. Also they view anyone to the Right of Lenin to be Fascist.
Yes, the French POV isn't the Anglo-Saxon POV. Never has been. From their point of view, it was Britain, not France, that lost France to the Germans. That France would have won if Britain had committed all of their Royal Airforce (and not kept any in reserve just in case). They also felt that the British demonstrated their perfidy at Oran (in 1940, Churchill had the navy attack half of the French fleet, though no state of war existed). And of course De Gaulle felt he should be treated as an equal to FDR/Stalin/Churchill. So did Chiang Kai-Shek, who was briefly met in Cairo later, when the big three were meeting at Teheran.
Shirley, you jest. Well it WOULD take the French to whine that it was up to the Brits to save their French butts after deciding their armies should surrender at the first surprise....
I recognize your justified sarcasm by "and not kept any in reserve just in case". But still "The Big Three" did not include the French for good reason, having been knocked over in a few weeks in spite of thinking it was a "major power".
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kkufPSw_eMU
https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/demonstrators-clash-portland-oregon-throw-concrete-milkshakes-n1025036
Better concrete milkshakes than acid. However fresh concrete is a caustic, the chemical opposite of acid, but equally burning.
Yes, most original anti-Fa (aka Trotsky followers in Germany) defected to the Nazis, once Hitler took power. One socialism is as good as another. Or maybe they only disliked fascism when Mussolini did it?
Quote from: Baruch on June 30, 2019, 07:42:53 PM
https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/demonstrators-clash-portland-oregon-throw-concrete-milkshakes-n1025036
Better concrete milkshakes than acid. However fresh concrete is a caustic, the chemical opposite of acid, but equally burning.
Yes, most original anti-Fa (aka Trotsky followers in Germany) defected to the Nazis, once Hitler took power. One socialism is as good as another. Or maybe they only disliked fascism when Mussolini did it?
Many fools believe "the enemy of my enemy is my friend". I suspect there is more truth in the idea of holding your friends close and your enemies closer.
Quote from: Cavebear on July 13, 2019, 01:25:57 PM
Many fools believe "the enemy of my enemy is my friend". I suspect there is more truth in the idea of holding your friends close and your enemies closer.
Both true. It is psychopathy, all the way down.
Quote from: Baruch on July 13, 2019, 02:07:12 PM
Both true. It is psychopathy, all the way down.
Learning about "enemies" is the fastest road to peace...
Quote from: Cavebear on July 13, 2019, 03:42:38 PM
Learning about "enemies" is the fastest road to peace...
You have to make enemies first. Soy boys can't do that.
Quote from: Baruch on July 13, 2019, 03:55:16 PM
You have to make enemies first. Soy boys can't do that.
Hey, I'm an atheist. Enemies abound. Dangerous ones even. Sometimes I feel like Beep-Beep...