What produces RUTHLESS DICTATORS?

@Setanta,

Setanta wrote:

okie wrote:
Setanta wrote:
Confronted with the undeniable evidence that Pinochet was a right-wing dictator, he mumbles something about market economy policies and grudgingly concedes that he was right-wing "in that respect"--the clear implication being that Okie is ready to brand him a red, red commie in other respects.

Again another lie. Common for you. I never said anything about what Pinochet was in other respects. That is your imagination running overtime.

Bullshit.
In your post #3733095

You wrote:
I did not look in great detail at Pinochet's policies, so I cannot say much more than that he does appear to have instituted more free market solutions to the economy down there, and so he was to the right of the socialists or communists there.

Sure enough, nowhere in that post did I imply that he was a red or commie in other respects. You are pathetic, Setanta, even in your so-called proof, the evidence proves you wrong.

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@dyslexia,

dyslexia wrote:

leftists=the road to hell is paved with good intentions.....
rightists=we don't need no paved roads, the mud hole ruts thru the cow meadow was good enough for grandpa.

Thanks, dys, not bad for you. Your leftist definition is good, but your thing about rightest is a bit off, as conservatives do believe government does have some legitimate functions, one besides national defense may be maintaining roads. One of the most notable conservatives that I can think of is the great Dwight D. Eisenhower, who in fact started building the Interstate road system. One could argue over whether the states should have a greater responsibility than the feds, but I am in favor of good roads.

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@okie,

so okie, you would vote no for social security? btw okie Dwight instituted the interstate highway system as a defense mechanism for military use in the event of nuclear war with the ussr, not to give you good roads. (it was also a jobs program during the Eisenhower recession).

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@dyslexia,

I think okie was saying he would have voted for anyone that could make the trains run on time.

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@dyslexia,

Did you hear that, dys? It was "not bad for you." LOL

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@cicerone imposter,

well, I am a liberal.

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I think what has Setanta and others like Walter confused is they have gotten lost in old definitions of left vs right. Examples are quoted below from Wikipedia. I think this should provide ample evidence that the definitions of left, right, conservative, liberal, etc. have changed greatly depending upon time and country. Therefore it is clear to me that for the purposes of this discussion, I have justifiably defined the left vs right spectrum as making more sense by using the modern American context or understanding of it. I make no apologies for this, and I have been pretty consistent and clear about this from the beginning of this thread. It makes no sense to try to argue on this thread using some outdated definition from Germany or somewhere else in the world, as Setanta and Walter seem to do.

I am asking, and I will continue to ask for their definitions, or anyone else's definition. By doing that, we can try to find common ground, at least agree on the ground rules here, as it makes no sense to argue whether something is green or red if we don't agree on what green or red looks like. The fallacy of their arguments here was really brought to light when they both claimed Obama was on the right. That really pointed out how far off they were. There is no way Obama is even close to the right, he is clearly a leftist.

The quote from Wiki that I have highlighted in red really shows why Hitler is not a right winger in context with modern American left vs right spectrum, no way at all. He may have been considered such in Germany, I don't even know that for sure, but the spectrum given us by Germany does not mean anything today, not as it applies to the debate here.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Left-right_politics

"Originally, the defining point on the ideological spectrum were the attitudes towards the ancien régime ("old order"). "The Right" thus implied support for aristocratic, royal and clerical interests, while "The Left" implied support for republicanism, secularism and civil liberties.[1] At that time, support for socialism and liberalism were regarded as being on the left. The earlier "left-wing" politicians were advocates of laissez faire capitalism[citation needed] and the "right-wing" politicians opposed it, until the early nineteenth century when anti-capitalism gained favour among the leftists due to the rise of socialism."

.....

During the French Revolution, the definition of who was on the left and who on the right shifted greatly within only a few years.

....

In practice, though, the distinction between liberals and conservatives could be vague - notably, in states with parliaments, conservatives were willing to work with representative government when necessary. To the left of the liberals came various stripes of radicals and republicans, who favored the overthrow of monarchies and the establishment of universal suffrage either on the model of the Spanish Constitution of 1812 or the French one of 1793.

.....

In nineteenth century Britain, laissez-faire capitalism found a small but strong following by such Manchester Liberals as Richard Cobden and Richard Wright. In 1867, this resulted in a free trade treaty being signed between Britain and France, after which several of these treaties were signed among other European countries.

The Bolsheviks were certainly "of the left", and the advocates of Stalinist, Soviet-style communism considered themselves to be "leftist". Most Western leftists would now dispute at least the Stalinist claim to Leftism, some of the reasons being the general suspension of political liberties and the gross inequities created by Stalinists and Maoists in practice. Similarly, Nazism and fascism are now severely discredited and usually won't be recognized by modern Western rightists as their own, in particular because historical Nazis and fascists did not advocate or practice a laissez-faire approach to the economy, and never proclaimed "liberty" as a value in either political or economic matters. See Doubt about the contemporary relevance of the terms for more recent proposals regarding the classification of Stalinists and Nazis.

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@dyslexia,

dyslexia wrote:

so okie, you would vote no for social security? btw okie Dwight instituted the interstate highway system as a defense mechanism for military use in the event of nuclear war with the ussr, not to give you good roads. (it was also a jobs program during the Eisenhower recession).

Yes, I would have voted no on social security. Do I believe in a safety net for the most helpless and unfortunate, yes, so I would have advocated an alternative to it. Would I disband social security now, no, because we cannot go off of it cold turkey, its a bit like a drug addiction, as we have all placed our money into the system and we now deserve some of it back, and too many people have come to rely upon it being there for them, even though originally it was clearly stated to be a "supplemental" program. Clearly though, just as Ponzi schemes ultimately collapse after they look good for a while, we have not seen the ultimate negative downside to this program, it has sapped alot of money out of the economy, then spent without much return on the money, and ultimately it will go broke or we will all go broke trying to fund it. To truly assess the wisdom of this program, you will need more than a few decades to evaluate its ultimate benefit and destructive aspects as well. We have not yet reaped all of the destructive aspects of it, just as people that borrow money to buy something, it looks good for a while, until they go bankrupt unable to pay off the loan. That could be what will happen to us in the future. Although it appears it has been very beneficial so far, the ultimate debt that it builds could literally wreak more havoc than anyone foresees right now.

So the only thing that could be done to fix it is to try to tweak it in various ways, by slowing the rate of growth of benefits, raising the retirment age slightly, or increasing the cap on earnings from which the deductions are taken. Further, a portion could be privatized, but only following strict guidelines for this, similar to what Bush tried to do, but was stopped by Congress.

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@okie,

so okie socialism is ok under your defined circumstances?

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@okie,

okie, It's not anything like "cold turkey." The majority of Americans will be out on the streets with no money to buy food, because the retired folks never saved enough. Those who were planning to retire last year or this year had to postpone their plans, and that's if they still had jobs. Many jobs were reduced in hours and pay, and this trend is not going to change any time soon. The richest country in the world will resemble India.

Since you have all the right solutions, have you contacted the white house yet?

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@dyslexia,

I said I would have voted no on social security, but you can't pull the rug out from under people that have become dependent upon it as their sole income in old age. Besides, they paid into it.

Obviously, any government incorporates some degree of minimal socialism, but I favor limiting it to what our constitution mandates what we do together using the government. A government has a minimal socialistic aspect to it, by definition, however, I favor limiting government from being too involved in those things that we can and should do for ourselves. To simplify the concept, I think the government should be more like referees of a basketball game, not mor like the players playing the game, and certainly not like players that hog the ball. The game of life, the game of citizenship, it does however require some ground rules so that we can live together in some harmony and tranquility, to prevent and regulate people from robbing each other blind.

So given a very limited social aspect of government to provide just a few things that the constitution mandates, such as national defense, police protections, etc., I don't think that government would be considered to be socialistic at all. I think to be considered socialistic, the government would be involved in almost every aspect of our life. If Obamacare goes through, the tentacles of socialism will grow much larger, to the point to where the United States is in danger of being classified as socialistic. We will then all suffer in terms of quality of life and our freedoms and liberty.

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@okie,

Yes, the seniors of today did "pay into it," but so have the baby-boomers whose potential for collecting what they were promised is disappearing as we speak. The so-called COB projections that the social security trust fund will last until 2042 has been made null and void by the current financial crisis.

You rarely have a grasp of any subject that you seem to participate in on a2k, but I see that most humor you anyhoos.

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@okie,

okie wrote:

I said I would have voted no on social security, but you can't pull the rug out from under people that have become dependent upon it as their sole income in old age. Besides, they paid into it.

Obviously, any government incorporates some degree of minimal socialism, but I favor limiting it to what our constitution mandates what we do together using the government. A government has a minimal socialistic aspect to it, by definition, however, I favor limiting government from being too involved in those things that we can and should do for ourselves. To simplify the concept, I think the government should be more like referees of a basketball game, not mor like the players playing the game, and certainly not like players that hog the ball. The game of life, the game of citizenship, it does however require some ground rules so that we can live together in some harmony and tranquility, to prevent and regulate people from robbing each other blind.

So given a very limited social aspect of government to provide just a few things that the constitution mandates, such as national defense, police protections, etc., I don't think that government would be considered to be socialistic at all. I think to be considered socialistic, the government would be involved in almost every aspect of our life. If Obamacare goes through, the tentacles of socialism will grow much larger, to the point to where the United States is in danger of being classified as socialistic. We will then all suffer in terms of quality of life and our freedoms and liberty.

gibberish babble.

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@okie,

When reading wiki, okie, it is best to look at the sources and then read the discussion if there are no sources.

This from the discussion.

Quote:

This section is generally awful. Perhaps my status as a historian is hitting me here, but these definitions are completely ahistorical. In particular, almost all of these definitions identify the right with classical liberalism. This is deeply, deeply problematic - through 1945, at least, the right was not associated with classical liberalism at all. The right was associated with authoritarianism and (in many countries, at least) protectionism. It was associated with monarchism, with fascism, with all kinds of horribly illiberal ideas. Up until 1945, even classical liberalism was very firmly an ideology of the center - it opposed the authoritarianism and traditionalism of the right just as much as it opposed the economic redistributionism of the left. If the left has to bear the assorted ideas of various anarchists, communists, and socialists, then the right should certainly not be identified as though it is synonymous with laissez faire. It is not, and was not. While laissez-faire liberalism is certainly a hallmark of the modern right in the developed world, this is a very recent phenomenon. It should be added that even since 1945 there has been a strong tendency of what has been, in many parts of Europe, the strongest faction within the center-right, Christian Democracy, against laissez-faire, and towards a much more paternalistic view of the role of government in society.

More briefly: the "meaning of the terms" section is total crap. john k 06:35, 22 Jun 2005 (UTC)

Basically, there is a lot of made up stuff on wiki about right/left politics. Much of it put there by people with your viewpoint without any valid sources.

The discussion on "Hitler opposed socialism?" is reminiscent of parts of this thread.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:Left-right_politics

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@okie,

Okie,
First an obvious CORRECTION to what I previously posted:
-------------------------------
Left wing Ideology advocates seek the maximization of the common good, and/or their own power by limiting the unalienable rights of all individuals.

Right wing Ideology advocates seek the maximization of the individual good by securing the unalienable rights of all individuals.

I know of several LEFT wing ideology advocates who are dictators.

I know of no right wing ideology advocates who are dictators.
-------------------------------

okie wrote:

Thanks ican for your definition, which is not much different than mine. I do have one question, do you consider nationalism as belonging to the left or right? I do not, as defense of country and nationalism is pretty much a trait of all countries to one extent or another. In fact it seems to me that some of the most militaristic and belligerent countries are on the left, which is contrary to what leftists might argue about nationalism. Look at the Soviet Union or North Korea for example, and who loves to wear their revolutionary or military uniforms more than leftist dictators, such as Castro, Chavez, or the guy in North Korea for example?

I agree! Nationalism is a common trait of both leftists and rightists.

However, an additional trait of some leftists is their effort to expand their nation into other nations.

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@okie,

Quote:

Sure enough, nowhere in that post did I imply that he was a red or commie in other respects. You are pathetic, Setanta, even in your so-called proof, the evidence proves you wrong.

If anyone is pathetic here, jerk-off, it's you. You had to edit my post to avoid what i actually wrote, so you could puke up this bullshit. I acknowledged that you didn't call him a red or a commie, but your remark does imply that he might not have been right wing in other respects. Here's the part of my post which you didn't have the guts or the honesty to quote, because it exposes your lie:

Setanta wrote:

Words and phrases have meanings, even if, to you, those meanings are elastic and mean what you want them to mean, regardless of what they say. When you say he was to the right of the socialists and communists there, the clear inference is that he may not have been to the right of them in other areas. Now certainly i was employing hyperbole and sarcasm when i used the expression "a red, red commie," but it does not alter the fact that you can't just admit that Pinochet was a right-wing dictator and leave it at that. It's like pulling teeth with you.

You and this thread--this exercise in reactionary mental masturbation--are pathetic.

You are so dull-witted that you think you can speak for the entire American people about what is "left" and what is "right." When it comes to political science and history, you are one of the most ignorant people i've ever encountered. What is worse, though, is that you won't remedy your ignorance because you are so eaten up with your obsessional partisan hatred.

Clown.

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Quote:

obsessional partisan hatred

pretty much covers Okie.

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I usually don't intervene in political debates as the issue is biased by the appartenances of the posters.

But it's beyond me that people can believe and adhere to such inept notions as expressed hereafter:

Ican wrote:

However, an additional trait of some leftists is their effort to expand their nation into other nations.

Please note that it would be a futile exercise to label me as a leftist, or a right-winger, for that matter.

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@Setanta,

Set, That about covers okie in a peanut shell. He just hasn't crawled out from his imbecilic myopia about left or right, and uses a few examples to make his case that's not even consistent.

okie claims he graduated at the top of his class. Makes anyone curious enough to wonder which school he graduated from.

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Basically, what we have here is Okie and Ican espousing a Chicken Little view of the contemporary American political scene. They are essentially saying: "The Democrats control the Congress! There's a Democrat in the White House! The sky is falling, the sky is falling ! ! !"

Both of them ought to thank their luck stars that they will never live in a true dictatorial state, whether of the left or the right. With their big mouths, and (especially in the case of Ican) their constant hysterical accusations, they'd be among the first to disappear.

Okie and Ican can only support their claims by reference to other hysterical, uninformed, obsessively partisan ranters. Neither one of them has made their case--and neither one of them ever will.

1 Reply

What produces RUTHLESS DICTATORS?

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