What is the Left (politically)?

[Ignatius A]

The master/slave dynamic didn't exist before that practice began, so why should it exist now?

To the left the delusion of the patriarchy is real.

 

[crossfire]

To the left the delusion of the patriarchy is real.

The patriarchal nomos will only last as long as it is perpetuated, so yes, in that respect it is mass delusion to those who believe in it and seek to perpetuate it.

 

[Ignatius A]

The patriarchal nomos will only last as long as it is perpetuated, so yes, in that respect it is mass delusion to those who believe in it and seek to perpetuate it.

Those only ones who believe in it are leftists

 

[It Aint Necessarily So]

So I am asking the members of the Soŕosian Left: what do you mean by Left when you call yourself "a leftist"?

I call myself a liberal, not a leftist, and Soros is not a part of my ideology. Actually, I know nothing about him apart from the fact that American rightists mention his name frequently.

The rightists used to trot out another guy I know nothing about as the typical liberal, a Saul Alinsky, but today, I don't see his name anymore. Soros is the min boogeyman.

And Marx and Marxists never get old for them to use as an epithet.

As far as I've understood, the American Left aka Sorosian Left in Europe is only about sex. The fair of banalities. They only care about the sex life of gays, lesbians.... And women's right not to take the pill and have an abortion...as if an abortion was something as pleasant as having unprotected sex.

So you see liberalism as an ideology about sex and nothing else. Not rights, not government, not economic policy - just sex.

Being a leftist means to side with the employees and never with employers.

Incorrect. I am a liberal and was also an employer. But it looks like you've expanded your definition of liberal (I hope that's what you mean by leftist)

I chose to be a leftist because injustices really bother me.

I thought it was so that you could think about sex and employees.

a lesbians' cultural dictatorship has led to the demonization of the white alpha man. So... men aren't respected unless they are gay.

You have some amazing ideas.

I live in a situation where men are not respected by women, and it's not because they're gay. I'm nobody to most of the women around me, who are mostly widowed or divorced. When my wife and I play bridge, they look at and talk to her, not me. They're not interested in meeting men to live with, date, or even to talk to. I think many discovered after they were alone that they liked it better that way.

It made me rethink my relationship with my wife. I expect her to outlive me, and I want to be missed when I' gone. I want her to see me leaving her life as a loss. And so I look for ways to increase my value to her. She doesn't need me as a provider, protector, or decision maker any more now that life is easy, safe, and more or less on auto-pilot. So what can I do for her to be valuable? Smile more, support her ambitions and praise her achievements like her garden and her art (she's learning ukulele now), disagree less, remind her that she is beautiful, and do everything around the house that I am capable of doing.

I just don't want her thinking, "Thank God that's over" like I imagine these other women did.

I was just wondering why the Democratic is obsessed with toxic masculinity.

More strange ideas form you. Two of the last three Democratic presidential candidates have been women.

There were 8 years of Clinton. He did nothing

Bill and Hillary were champions of universal health care. They were stymied by Republicans at every turn. Then, Obama had some success with the ACA, but the Republican battled him tooth and nail before and since its enactment.

I was a hospice medical director in the mid-90's which meant driving to people's homes. We were admitting a man to hospice who had had lung cancer treated at about age sixty, which wiped him out financially. Symptoms recurred at age 64. He decided to wait for his Medicare to kick in the following year before getting help. By then, his cancer was widely metastatic, no longer treatable, and he was admitted to hospice. As I drove up to his home, I saw his pickup truck in his driveway with a bumper sticker containing caricatures of Bill and Hillary with the words "twin air bags." He died a week later.

I had mixed feelings about that, and never forgot that day. This guy was a victim of American conservatives, and here he was carrying water for them as he lay dying for lack of access to medical care that the "twin air bags" had fought unsuccessfully to get him.

I say mixed because while empathizing for the millions that were being hurt by the right, those that sided with them and even went so far as to put mindless and offensive bumper stickers like his on his vehicle offended me and lost my respect.

Conservative has a connection to the word, conservation. It tries to conserve the greatest hits of the past. These are test proven ideas and ideals that have plenty of good data.

I understand liberal and conservative in terms of conservatives trying to concentrate wealth, power, and privilege among what's come to be called the 1% in the States (or oligarchs in Russia), and liberalism being the efforts (often beginning with revolutions) to liberate those and distribute them among commoners.

Look at the example of the States. Before Reagan, America had a healthy middle class. There was a wave of liberal movements to increase equality among blacks, women, and gays. Then, the right waged a silent and successful class war to regain much of its distributed wealth and impoverish the middle class with tax cuts and assorted deregulations. Now, the average American household (sorry to be so ethnocentric, but that's the model I'm most familiar with) requires two incomes if there are kids, and they have less disposable income than their grandparents had.

My family was typical middle class. My stepfather was blue collar and my mother a bookkeeper. We had home, a nice big station wagon, we took vacations in it to places like Las Vegas and Lake Taho yearly, I went to private school, and my sister took ballet lessons. I don't think young blue-collar couples with kids can live like that anymore since the class wars of the eighties and beyond. But there sure are a lot of billionaires today since then. THAT'S conservatism - concentrating and conserving wealth, power, and privilege. Look at how people like Epstein and Trump live(d). Wealthy and flouting the law as if it doesn't apply to them. THAT'S conservatism.

 

[crossfire]

Those only ones who believe in it are leftists

The nomos operates just under the conscious mind, and is resistant to critique. Those who are unaware of it will defend it, as it serves as the basis of reality for those under its influence. Those who perpetuate it are probably not aware of its influence over their minds. This is why it is so resistant to critique.

Consciousness-raising can sometimes be rather difficult.

 

[Estro Felino]

I call myself a liberal, not a leftist,

That's a relief.

So you see liberalism as an ideology about sex and nothing else. Not rights, not government, not economic policy - just sex.

In Italy liberals are those who allow capitalists to do the most disgusting things.

I am not a liberal. I am an intransigent statist.
The State needs to use the whip with these Capitalists.

I thought it was so that you could think about sex and employees.

You have some amazing ideas.

In the USA democrats are obsessed with abortion.
I have some news for them: they have invented condoms and birth control.
So abortion is not the only method any more.

Bill and Hillary were champions of universal health care. They were stymied by Republicans at every turn. Then, Obama had some success with the ACA, but the Republican battled him tooth and nail before and since its enactment.

Ok....why almost all European European countries passed a universal healthcare law...whereas the first economic power (Usa) didn't?

I was a hospice medical director in the mid-90's which meant driving to people's homes. We were admitting a man to hospice who had had lung cancer treated at about age sixty, which wiped him out financially. Symptoms recurred at age 64. He decided to wait for his Medicare to kick in the following year before getting help. By then, his cancer was widely metastatic, no longer treatable, and he was admitted to hospice. As I drove up to his home, I saw his pickup truck in his driveway with a bumper sticker containing caricatures of Bill and Hillary with the words "twin air bags." He died a week later.

I had mixed feelings about that, and never forgot that day. This guy was a victim of American conservatives, and here he was carrying water for them as he lay dying for lack of access to medical care that the "twin air bags" had fought unsuccessfully to get him.

I say mixed because while empathizing for the millions that were being hurt by the right, those that sided with them and even went so far as to put mindless and offensive bumper stickers like his on his vehicle offended me and lost my respect.

I understand liberal and conservative in terms of conservatives trying to concentrate wealth, power, and privilege among what's come to be called the 1% in the States (or oligarchs in Russia), and liberalism being the efforts (often beginning with revolutions) to liberate those and distribute them among commoners.

Look at the example of the States. Before Reagan, America had a healthy middle class. There was a wave of liberal movements to increase equality among blacks, women, and gays. Then, the right waged a silent and successful class war to regain much of its distributed wealth and impoverish the middle class with tax cuts and assorted deregulations. Now, the average American household (sorry to be so ethnocentric, but that's the model I'm most familiar with) requires two incomes if there are kids, and they have less disposable income than their grandparents had.

My family was typical middle class. My stepfather was blue collar and my mother a bookkeeper. We had home, a nice big station wagon, we took vacations in it to places like Las Vegas and Lake Taho yearly, I went to private school, and my sister took ballet lessons. I don't think young blue-collar couples with kids can live like that anymore since the class wars of the eighties and beyond. But there sure are a lot of billionaires today since then. THAT'S conservatism - concentrating and conserving wealth, power, and privilege. Look at how people like Epstein and Trump live(d). Wealthy and flouting the law as if it doesn't apply to them. THAT'S conservatism.

Look...dear sir:
A private healthcare system in the country which is the first economic power is CRIMINAL.

And criminals must be punished.
If I were an American citizen, I would be disposed to let the cops kill me, because I would protest all day before Capitol Hill!
It is better to die than to live and coexist with such CRIMINALS!

 

[mikkel_the_dane]

That's risk and it's greater than that of the employee.

Yeah, and that is not the only subjective consideration going. That is my point.

 

[mikkel_the_dane]

But you do care

So do you.

 

[Spice]

I think the traditions you might be referring to actually started in the 1980s, under Reagan. Prior to that, there was greater support for unions, along with greater sympathy for the poor and working classes. It was Reagan and his supporters who reversed decades of reform and social progress. MAGA is just the natural long-term consequence of the irresponsible and reckless policies we've had since the 1980s.

Agreed -- when mortgage rates were 13% and mental health programs were defunded. I've never understood the Reagan years as being sooo good. He did OK in foreign policy, but Carter did the hard work there, IMO.

 

[mikkel_the_dane]

To the left the delusion of the patriarchy is real.

Yeah, lets try again. Evidence that the left is the left and who speaks for the left!

 

[Estro Felino]

I had mixed feelings about that, and never forgot that day. This guy was a victim of American conservatives, and here he was carrying water for them as he lay dying for lack of access to medical care that the "twin air bags" had fought unsuccessfully to get him.

No...he was the victim of a money-obsessed culture.

Because in my country 70 years ago there was no universal healthcare system yet....
But a surgeon would have tried to save him for free.

 

[It Aint Necessarily So]

In the USA democrats are obsessed with abortion.

Democrats are defenders of choice. Choice is the essence of freedom. If I may take liberties with some well-known song lyrics, freedom's just another word for something else to choose.

I have some news for them: they have invented condoms and birth control. So abortion is not the only method any more.

Those are also options - for now - but abortion is the only option other than letting nature take its course once one is pregnant.

If I were an American citizen, I would be disposed to let the cops kill me, because I would protest all day before Capitol Hill! It is better to die than to live and coexist with such CRIMINALS!

You could protest all day outside of the Capitol building if you chose and you would not be killed by the police - for now. Nothing is certain there anymore.

But I get your point. Being American is maddening now for anybody who values its Constitution, democracy, church-state separation, egalitarianism, and the rule of law. America is maddening for anybody who wonders why there are so many people working against their own interests like the guy with the pickup who died of his lung cancer, why so many are so easily indoctrinated.

he was the victim of a money-obsessed culture.

Not all of it, but yes, he was. Remember, there were people - he called them twin air bags - working against that obsession trying to get him public health care before age 65, when he needed it, but the greedy contingent and their indifference to people like him won the day. What makes it so ironic is that he was helping them. Americans aren't very good at identifying who is their friend and who is their enemy, which is why Trump is only trailing Harris by a few percentage points.

You were saying that if you were American, you'd die protesting it. I had a similar reaction to America, but I just moved out, in large part because I didn't want my fate decided by those people. That was fifteen years ago. I likened America to a business owned by two brothers with equal power to hire and spend, one responsible and well-informed, the other a fool who kept hiring managers that harmed the business and embezzled from it, and I wanted to end that relationship. I just didn't want to be dragged down by the foolish brother.

 

[Estro Felino]

Democrats are defenders of choice. Choice is the essence of freedom. If I may take liberties with some well-known song lyrics, freedom's just another word for something else to choose.

Those are also options - for now - but abortion is the only option other than letting nature take its course once one is pregnant.

I am for abortion too.
But with the pill it is basically impossible to get pregnant.
So abortion is something prehistoric.

You could protest all day outside of the Capitol building if you chose and you would not be killed by the police - for now. Nothing is certain there anymore.

I would not protest only.
I would use other means

..and USA cops don't mind shooting.

 

[Father Heathen]

Just about everything but especially free speech

lol, free speech?

Elon Musk, King of Censorship: 10 Times the 'Free Speech Absolutist' Silenced Twitter Users

Elon Musk talks a big game about freedom of expression. The billionaire refers to himself as a “free speech absolutist,” and spent the last year making bold promises about undoing Twitter’s perceived history of suppressing distasteful ideas. But the old saying goes, you should judge a man by his...

www.yahoo.com

Elon Musk Accused Of ‘Silencing His Critics’ As X Suspends Journalists

“If you are one of those people who actually believe that Elon Musk is a principled champion of free speech, then you maybe one of the dumbest people to have ever walked the earth,” said former MSNBC host Mehdi Hasan.

www.forbes.com

Under Elon Musk, Twitter has approved 83% of censorship requests by authoritarian governments

The social network has restricted and withdrawn content critical of the ruling parties in Turkey and India, among other countries, including during electoral campaigns

english.elpais.com

https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2024/08/07/musk-x-harris-bias/

Elon Musk has become the world’s biggest hypocrite on free speech | Trevor Timm

The world needs people willing to stand up for freedom of expression – which makes Musk’s trajectory all the sadder

www.theguardian.com

 

[Estro Felino]

lol, free speech?

Elon Musk, King of Censorship: 10 Times the 'Free Speech Absolutist' Silenced Twitter Users

Elon Musk talks a big game about freedom of expression. The billionaire refers to himself as a “free speech absolutist,” and spent the last year making bold promises about undoing Twitter’s perceived history of suppressing distasteful ideas. But the old saying goes, you should judge a man by his...

www.yahoo.com

Elon Musk Accused Of ‘Silencing His Critics’ As X Suspends Journalists

“If you are one of those people who actually believe that Elon Musk is a principled champion of free speech, then you maybe one of the dumbest people to have ever walked the earth,” said former MSNBC host Mehdi Hasan.

www.forbes.com

Under Elon Musk, Twitter has approved 83% of censorship requests by authoritarian governments

The social network has restricted and withdrawn content critical of the ruling parties in Turkey and India, among other countries, including during electoral campaigns

english.elpais.com

https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2024/08/07/musk-x-harris-bias/

Elon Musk has become the world’s biggest hypocrite on free speech | Trevor Timm

The world needs people willing to stand up for freedom of expression – which makes Musk’s trajectory all the sadder

www.theguardian.com

Yes.
I was disappointed.

 

[Father Heathen]

Yes.
I was disappointed.

He's a two-faced man-child.

 

[Pogo]

Agreed -- when mortgage rates were 13% and mental health programs were defunded. I've never understood the Reagan years as being sooo good. He did OK in foreign policy, but Carter did the hard work there, IMO.

His tear down that wall was about as real as a kid blowing a kazoo to knock down a Jericho stage flat wall in a Christmas pagent. My relatives that lived behind it still can't believe that he gets credit for it collapsing of its own weight.

 

[Evangelicalhumanist]

So how many tries did it take you to get that centered?

Me, -7.6 and -5.5 it even agrees with my identification as a socialist libertarian.

Oops! I've slid further left! I used to be about -4.5 and -5.5. I just did it again (last time was in 2016) and I'm -5.63, -7.13.

 

[Evangelicalhumanist]

You can't define "left" or "right" without being more granular. If you try to describe any individual as either one or the other without considering many, many economic, religious, social and political attitudes, you'll wind up with porridge.

Let me give an example: on the Political Compass, I am very firmly in the Libertarian (the right of humans to make their own choices for their own reasons) zone. That is, I see myself as having a very strong (and therefore very liberal) commitment to what I shall call "Liberty."

Now, many on the right (especially fundamentalist Christians), also consider themselves to be firmly on the side of "liberty." For example, they think it is a terrible infringement on personal "liberty" to be forced to deliver a wedding cake to a same-sex couple. At the same time, however, forcing a child to deliver the baby of a rapist is not seen by them as an affront to "liberty." This, to me, says "authoritarian" the whole nine yards.

 

[Evangelicalhumanist]

There were 8 years of Clinton.
He did nothing

Total rubbish! Go and read the actual history of what the Clinton administration did regarding healthcare:

The Clinton Presidency: Improving the Nation's Health Care