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CKA Uber
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PostPosted: Sat Jan 17, 2015 5:07 pm
 


Honestly, I consider modern liberalism ("the middle") to just be another hardened standpoint a person can make.

I'm a communist. I have beliefs and values that don't really let that change. I'm arguing that liberals and conservatives and everything in between are actually the exact same.

Are you open minded to communism? Maybe moderation is a myth and we actually just live in significantly advanced capitalist countries run by interests that focus on maintaining and streamlining that capitalism, with some social reform here and there as fought for by the people decades ago. People who hold no opinion on this reality past "it's a mixed economy" do the politics of socialist thought an obscene injustice, pretending like you cater to even politics.

I'm touched that social reform that people desire is considered "socialist", since that's about the only positive connotation that word is allowed to have these days, but it's disgustingly obnoxious to insinuate that there are any socialist policies or efforts actually in place in this country when that is simply not the case. Even the naive NDP is nothing but a bunch of liberals pleading that they're "moderates considering both sides of the debate".

There are no "moderates". There are people with views, and some are less willing to admit their rigidity than others. It is not a better position just because two sides came to the conclusion that they will have to be kkay with watered down reformed versions of their actual desires. Exciting.

Pragmatism is something to envy in politics. "Moderation" is not.


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PostPosted: Sat Jan 17, 2015 5:26 pm
 


I would be more open to Communism if we hadn't witnessed so many dysfunctional versions of it come a cropper during he twentieth century. It is a control freak's dream ... dictating every aspect of the economy, and ultimately it gets extended to every aspect of human behaviour. The economy is the vehicle by which we all survive and if you must take it over, you have to take us over, too. A goodly number of us would have to completely suspend our hard-earned disbelief before we would give Communism another try. There is a difference between hide-bound and not learning from our past mistakes. We won't evolve as a species if we keep revisiting disastrous things and trying them again and again. Time for something creative and new, not a failed nineteenth century "ism".


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PostPosted: Sat Jan 17, 2015 5:34 pm
 


Communism and free market capitalism are not pragmatic. They can't be, since they are idealist idea.

PD can go on about communism not having been tried, but I think what he's talking about is commutarianism. It only seems to work in small groups that have a guiding ideal, and then usually only for a short time. Guess the Hutterites/Amish are the exception for longevity. Doubt you could apply their system to all of Canada even if people wanted.

Communism is about all property being owned collectively. It just won't work, people aren't built that way. Try farming under that regime and people starve. Again, there are small groups where there is communtarian farming, lots of mutualism, but people strill strive to produce and own more.

The closest we came to communism was in hunter gatherer societies, because there was little to be owned in the first place. What people did own, was theirs, but was usually freely shared. Again, those were small bands of people, and often if they came in contact with other bands they had war, because they both wanted to "own" the hunting or gathering territory.


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PostPosted: Sat Jan 17, 2015 6:49 pm
 


I'm going to just let you know that communism is signicantly more than just the paranoid fear of the loss of personal property.


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PostPosted: Sat Jan 17, 2015 6:57 pm
 


Yeah, it's more defined by mass murder in a Siberian or Cambodian swamp of the faceless, voiceless, and helpless.


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PostPosted: Sat Jan 17, 2015 7:14 pm
 


To be frank, my contribution to this thread wasn't to argue the merits of communism. I'll do that some other time. My post mainly asks you not to flatter yourselfs with backpatting notions that you are somehow more capable of political give than I am, just because I'm an "extremist" (a horseshit term in general). Are you guys members of RevLeft? How often fo you spend your time discussing current events and political situations with people of a vastly different view than you? Or are you members of a forum where 99% of the userbase has views that are no more than a stone's throw from your own?

I'm more of a "moderate" than any of you.


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PostPosted: Sat Jan 17, 2015 7:18 pm
 


I don't consider you to be an extremist, really. You might just be a dinosaur, though.


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PostPosted: Sat Jan 17, 2015 7:23 pm
 


I'm only 22 :cry:

(thanks though, I like to think I make a "moderate" effort to not just be some agent pumping out pamphlets)


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PostPosted: Sat Jan 17, 2015 8:27 pm
 


Humanity moves on.


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PostPosted: Sun Jan 18, 2015 12:12 am
 


Jabberwalker Jabberwalker:
Time for something creative and new, not a failed nineteenth century "ism".
Hey, I agree. Not many views are unlabeled at this point however, and the whole crying over "isms" is ridiculous since you subscribe to neoliberalism and capitalism and all that fun stuff. I don't pay party fees or go to meetings, so what makes my ism less okay then yours? Because it's not about isms, it's an empty statement that is thrown at anarchists, socialists, and communists. Capitalism is exempt from the statement mostly because it's the status quo, the real force behind that cliche, as with all those other one-sentence throwaway arguments about human nature and how we're inescapable animals despite literally defining ourselves and advancing our societies by how much we taunt our "nature". Are you eating bark, rubbing mud on your skin, and shitting without wiping? Because if you are, then you can come tell me about human nature without me groaning.

Pretending to have no beliefs, a "lack of isms", is just another humbleless backpat for liberals to pride themselves with. Stop saying that freaking cliche shit, I do not consider it wise or useful. "People who don't learn history are doomed to repeat it!" kind of shit. If you're going to try and completely cast out my ideology with one phrase, I'd appreciate it if you put the effort into pretending your opinion wasn't just something you saw in a fucking Facebook post earlier, especially when you pretend to be "against the grain" by pulling out that empty set of words. I take great care in making sure my rebuttals are worded uniquely almost every time, because I care about my standpoint and don't believe that prattling off simple answers or cliche statements is an honest method to approach political debate with.

I know plenty of people who don't subscribe to "isms" of some sort. Those people definitely don't discuss politics on a forum daily though. But if you bring up certain news stories to people, I don't care who the hell they are, they will let slip their ism even if they don't even know what its name is.

So to recap: There is no such thing as a 'moderate', and if you have posts on this forum you almost certainly subscribe to an ism. It might be esoteric as fuck but trust me, there's a category for you.


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PostPosted: Sun Jan 18, 2015 7:42 am
 


If we are going to stick to the left right simplification of beliefs I'd say that both are willing to use facts and values when it suits them.

I think the left likes to twist facts to suit their values more than the right does, while the right is more willing to say facts be damned it's right or wrong.

Examples, would be the disproved but still quoted facts about sexual assault (1 in 5 or 1 in 4), gender wage gap, immigrant and minority crime and violence.

For the values beliefs, support for capital punishment, drug regulation (or bans), opposition to abortion.


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PostPosted: Sun Jan 18, 2015 7:59 am
 


Public_Domain Public_Domain:
There is no such thing as a 'moderate', and if you have posts on this forum you almost certainly subscribe to an ism. It might be esoteric as fuck but trust me, there's a category for you.


The trouble with "communism" is that it's not even that useful as a label. I swear, it's like the Baskin Robbins of ideologies.

I'm pretty upfront about my "ism". It's in my username, after all. But I'm not arguing for everyone living in a cabin out in the woods, completely independent from one another. Unlike Margaret Thatcher, I do recognize the existence of a thing called "society". I find it frustrating sometimes, and frequently stifling, but I also acknowledge its necessity.

The individualist/collectivist divide is only roughly correlated to the left/right one. For instance, what's more collectivist than a corporation? In fact, I'd argue that most of the problems with corporations stem from their collectivist nature. And some on the political left are indeed concerned with individual liberty and suspicious of any large institution, be it public or private.

I (perhaps not surprisingly, once again given my username) believe we all have a personal ideology, to which these commonly used labels and abstractions line up to a better or worse degree, but always inexactly. It's like dividing 22 by 7 in math class to get a "good enough" approximation of pi for easy calculation.

For me, concrete examples always help. If you tell me that the best qualified candidate did not get a particular job, I would be bothered by that, regardless of what the colour, gender, sexual orientation, ethnicity, age, etc. was. If you ask most people on the political left, they would want to know what identity groups that person belonged to, and whether one or more of those groups was "underrepresented" in that particular field or organization or "marginalized" in general before rendering judgement. In fact, for a smaller subset of the left, the person's individual suitability for the job would be almost completely irrelevant.

To me, it's a question of whether the fastest runner was allowed to win the race, whereas for them it would be a question of whether this particular decision stemmed from or contributed to systemic (i.e. aggregate) discrimination or injustice. For them, the question of justice is always at the aggregate level, with the individual victim just a data point. An injustice committed against an "advantaged" or "privileged" person cancels out one done against a disadvantaged one. The sum is all that matters.

I think as well of the criminal justice point I mentioned earlier. I am willing to accept a somewhat higher crime rate if that is the cost of ensuring that criminals have been punished (not just "treated") for the harm they caused others. So I don't accept the "crime rate is going down" argument for a non-punitive justice approach. I see that argument as almost a non sequitur, as punishment is not solely about deterrent. But someone who sees crime from a collectivist view point considers it a set of offences against society, not against individuals. Once again, the victim is a data point, their sympathy for which is a factor of their "privilege" (driven once again by group affiliation rather than personal character or behaviour) relative to others.

When I call myself "Individualist", what I am saying (shouting in fact) is that you and I are more than data points or game pieces for the governing elites. We are more than our identity categories. We are more than our ideological categories as well. I call myself Individualist, but that word does not define me.


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PostPosted: Sun Jan 18, 2015 9:01 am
 


the myth of the most qualified candidate, as if applicants can be clearly laid on a spectrum of competence. Very rarely the case - there will be a pool of more or less equally qualified people. For one thing, qualifications aren't just one data point, education say, or experience. Many factors go who is the best fit for the job - that's what makes hiring such a difficult proposition that many companies get wrong. The current trend, once basic credentials have been established, is for companies to ask all sorts of psychological questions that show how well the applicant will fit into the company culture, (in most jobs, women would have the edge here) how well they are able to think on their feet and outside the box, etc. It may turn out that a rugged individualist just doesn't fit that well into the collectivist corporate culture.

So, you will probably wind up with a pool of equally qualified people. In that case, seems to me entirely supportable to hire the person who is least reflected in the companies makeup. Only looking for minority candidates from the outset, setting quotas, should not be allowed.

AS for crime, yes sorry, our justice system does see the crime as being committed against society, not just the victim. Has for a long, long time, ever since we evolved from justice systems such as in Saudi Arabia. I'm willing to pay the price of not having my desire fro revenge stilled if it leads to a society such as ours vs Saudi Arabia. Or China. Our approach seems to be working out quite well for Canada. Well, we could always improve and copy Norway say, a much more peaceful country, but as has been pointed out, we're just not at that level yet. Our justice system should focus much more on restorative justice, which is good for victim and perp alike, and on rehabilitation, which is good for all of us. Accepting a higher crime rate so someone's lust for revenge is satisfied is just nuts. And can that lust ever be stilled? Wouldn't we have to execute pretty well everybody convicted of more that J walking to still that lust? If someone cons you out of your life savings, wouldn't you want that person killed? If they do kill somebody you love, is killing them really going to satisfy you? (those who have experienced this say no)


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PostPosted: Sun Jan 18, 2015 10:38 am
 


Another example of where the left's obsession with groups and systemic social factors messes up an otherwise good thing is the "anti-bullying movement". I loathe all forms of bullying in schools, and have sympathy for the unique pain that those who suffer bullying due to their sexual orientation experience. But there doesn't need to be a hierarchy of bullying, where some types are worthy of intervention by the school and/or state and others are dismissed as "just part of growing up".

This goes back to my individualistic perspective. I see an individual in pain through no fault of his/her own, and my first impulse isn't to scan through his identity characteristics and group affiliations to determine just how sorry I should feel for him/her, or if I even should at all. For me, the issue is the severity of the bullying and the impact on the victim, not the motivation for it.

I think "gay-straight alliances" are a terrific idea in principle, particularly as part of a broader anti-bullying strategy. What I worry about it that, under the influence of leftist identity politics, GSA's could end up being something like this.


GSA LEADER: Welcome to the anti-bullying workshop. How can we help you?

STUDENT: Hi. I'm a tenth grader here. I'm getting bullied all the time by the jocks in the phys-ed class, because I'm nerdy and not athletic. It's both verbal and physical.

GSA LEADER: Well, that's unfortunate for you. But our focus is on bullying that takes place within the context of a larger narrative of oppression.

STUDENT: Isn't what I'm going through sort of that?

GSA LEADER (tsk-tsking): You really need to check your privilege. Looking at you, I can see that you're white and cisgender male, and likely of middle-class upbringing and Western European heritage.

STUDENT: Um, yeah. What does that...

GSA LEADER: Based on your attitude, I would also assume that you're straight.

STUDENT: Okay, I'm confused.

GSA LEADER: What I'm saying is that being bullied doesn't mean you're being oppressed.

STUDENT: The sign outside says bullying. Being bullied is still a bad thing, right.

GSA LEADER: Our focus in this group in on vectors of oppression as experienced by members of the LGBTQIA community in this school.

STUDENT: The “A” is asexual, right? I'm a virgin who has social anxiety around girls. Doesn't that kind of count?

GSA LEADER: Get your entitled ass out of here!


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PostPosted: Mon Jan 19, 2015 9:54 pm
 


Mmm....you can't use an invented dialogue that never happened except in your own imagination to prove your hypotheis


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