American Politics Thread: Orange is the new POTUS (Archive)

[CliffFletcher]

Originally Posted by CorsiHockeyLeague

There are now two groups of people with very different ideas about how the country and world should be run, each of whom are utterly certain that their ideal vision of society is the righteous, correct outcome and are willing to compromise more or less any principle to effect this outcome.

There is then a third group that says, "no, you say you know what's best, but I don't trust you. Every time some political movement du jour has claimed dominion over what must be for everyone and tried to seize total control to create their utopian vision, they've ultimately been shown to be wrong. The principles we came up with about 200 years ago have carried us to the golden age of human history. Let's continue that project."

This. Our liberal institutions were set up largely to defend against dogmatic ideologues trying to set achieve utopia. Nobody can be trusted with the kind of power required to bring about and enforce an ideal world, so we let everyone have a voice, we foster and protect dissent.

Originally Posted by rubecube

Yeah man. Good thing the history of liberalism has been all puppy dogs and ice cream cake, or are you going to pull a "no true Scotsman" regarding this?

That word doesn't mean what you think it means. If you don't stand for defending unpopular opinions from the oppression of the state or the majority, then you aren't a liberal. Liberals sometimes have to fight, but not to enforce a consensus - they fight to protect dissent.

[rubecube]

Originally Posted by CorsiHockeyLeague

This makes no sense. To the extent any of these countries have made foreign policy blunders, has it ever been for the sake of liberalism? It's not like England has gone around the world murdering and enslaving people for their lack of commitment to free speech and freedom of assembly. The USA didn't go into Vietnam on the basis that the government wasn't allowing people to practice their religion without interference or write subversive books.

Ahh okay, so liberal regimes are only bloody liberal regimes when they commit bloody acts in the name of liberalism?

As far as I'm aware, no one in history has ever started a violent conflict out of an overabundance of respect for reason, evidence and a desire for the expression of a plurality of viewpoints.

Uhhh...didn't W claim he was "liberating" the Iraqis during the invasion.

[CorsiHockeyLeague]

Originally Posted by Fuzz

Uhm, Al Quida? ISIS?

...Que?

Did you misread my post?

[rubecube]

Originally Posted by CliffFletcher

That word doesn't mean what you think it means. If you don't stand for defending unpopular opinions from the oppression of the state or the majority, then you aren't a liberal. Liberals sometimes have to fight, but not to enforce a consensus - they fight to protect dissent.

Oh yeah, the Truman Doctrine and McCartyhism were all about protecting dissent.

[Fuzz]

Originally Posted by CorsiHockeyLeague

...Que?

Did you misread my post?

Did they not start wars over a lack of respect for reason, evidence and a desire for the expression of a plurality of viewpoints?

[Lanny_McDonald]

Originally Posted by CorsiHockeyLeague

This makes no sense. To the extent any of these countries have made foreign policy blunders, has it ever been for the sake of liberalism? It's not like England has gone around the world murdering and enslaving people for their lack of commitment to free speech and freedom of assembly. The USA didn't go into Vietnam on the basis that the government wasn't allowing people to practice their religion without interference or write subversive books.

As far as I'm aware, no one in history has ever started a violent conflict out of an overabundance of respect for reason, evidence and a desire for the expression of a plurality of viewpoints.

What? Are you suggesting the United States has never intervened in the politics of another nation or attempted to nationbuild in their own image, in the name of liberalism and democracy? The list that proves otherwise is way too long to post in this thread.

[CorsiHockeyLeague]

Originally Posted by rubecube

Ahh okay, so liberal regimes are only bloody liberal regimes when they commit bloody acts in the name of liberalism?

Basically, yeah... so - called liberal regimes can act illiberally, and it's ridiculous to lay the consequences at the feet of liberalism if they do. Hell, the USA is still a liberal democracy (for now, though damned if they aren't trying) but if tomorrow they outlaw flag burning, it would be ridiculous to blame liberalism for that.

By way of example, the Nazi ideology explicitly included a belief in Aryan exceptionalism, which was directly answerable for the genocide that the Nazis perpetrated. They weren't acting in a way that diverged from Naziism in setting up concentration camps, it was their very belief system that prompted that action.

Uhhh...didn't W claim he was "liberating" the Iraqis during the invasion.

Iraq was explicitly sold to everyone as a defensive war. The consensus was that it was a disaster largely because no WMDs were found. If someone had discovered a bunker full of tactical nukes I suspect that endeavour would have had a different public perception. But it is an interesting notion as to whether going to war to defend against authoritarianism locally is justified... I guess you could argue that intervention in Rwanda, for example, was done on the basis of liberalism.

[rubecube]

Originally Posted by CorsiHockeyLeague

Basically, yeah... so - called liberal regimes can act illiberally, and it's ridiculous to lay the consequences at the feet of liberalism if they do. Hell, the USA is still a liberal democracy (for now, though damned if they aren't trying) but if tomorrow they outlaw flag burning, it would be ridiculous to blame liberalism for that.

Okay, but then why blame Marxism for the actions of Stalin and Mao then? There is nothing in traditional Marxist doctrine which advocates for the murder of millions of people. Hell, Marx kinda didn't really advocate for anything as much as he suggested an inevitable conclusion to capitalism.

[Parallex]

Originally Posted by CliffFletcher

What do the terms Conservative and Liberal even mean today? The left used to be associated with working-class, blue collar workers, and the right with the professional classes and the affluent. Today, it's the populist right who call for protectionism, and the cosmopolitan left who jet all around the world.

I don't think that's really true.

You're more talking about the positions of the American political parties and party political voter coalitions morph over time. political differences essentially boil down to two things... Rights & Wealth, with liberals essentially championing the expansion of rights and broad disbursement of wealth while conservatives trending towards the restriction (or at least limiting it to the persistence of current as opposed to further expansion) of rights, and championing more just the creation of wealth with less regard for it's disbursement.

My 2 cents anyways.

[Flash Walken]

Remember that time when 2stonebirds tried to frame the founder of Planned Parenthood as a racist eugenicist by changing the words of a quote of hers to try to derail a conversation in favour of his right wing i love my gun bull####?

The guy is one of the biggest, most obvious trolls on this board.

He should be basically disqualified from participating in political discussions and I'd hazard to say the intelligent members of this board would do well to ignore him completely.

[CorsiHockeyLeague]

Originally Posted by rubecube

Okay, but then why blame Marxism for the actions of Stalin and Mao then? There is nothing in traditional Marxist doctrine which advocates for the murder of millions of people.

That's a fair question. There's an argument to be made that it inherently leads you down that road, though - much of the bad that came out of those regimes was the result of the mandatory and adamantine requirement that everyone be subservient to the state, and that dissent from the goals of the state could not be tolerated lest they frustrate the project of communism.

If there was an alternate universe where the USSR managed to maintain a Marxist state that wasn't totalitarian and oppressive, but allowed for and respected dissent and political difference, Stalin would have had much less to answer for than he did. Itse was arguing earlier that such states exist. If it's possible to create a functional Marxist society without compromising the principles of Marxism, then it's hard to argue that those principles were themselves responsible (directly or indirectly) for the atrocities produced by communist states in the 20th century. That's probably a pretty complicated thing to try to analyze, historically.

[aaronck]

Originally Posted by REDVAN

Right, as we all know everything is coming from Bannon anyway so Trump has a lot of free time for tweeting.

Don't forget time to plug all the family business'. Bigly important

[ResAlien]

Originally Posted by Flash Walken

Remember that time when 2stonebirds tried to frame the founder of Planned Parenthood as a racist eugenicist by changing the words of a quote of hers to try to derail a conversation in favour of his right wing i love my gun bull####?

The guy is one of the biggest, most obvious trolls on this board.

He should be basically disqualified from participating in political discussions and I'd hazard to say the intelligent members of this board would do well to ignore him completely.

No way man.

First you're disqualifying the obvious trolls, then you're not standing up for Milo, then you're not protecting Nazis, then you're silencing all dissent, and then your liberal jackboots are stomping squarely on the throat of freedom. Do you want more liberal fascists? That's how you get liberal fascists.

[rubecube]

Originally Posted by CorsiHockeyLeague

That's a fair question. There's an argument to be made that it inherently leads you down that road, though - much of the bad that came out of those regimes was the result of the mandatory and adamantine requirement that everyone be subservient to the state, and that dissent from the goals of the state could not be tolerated lest they frustrate the project of communism.

If there was an alternate universe where the USSR managed to maintain a Marxist state that wasn't totalitarian and oppressive, but allowed for and respected dissent and political difference, Stalin would have had much less to answer for than he did. Itse was arguing earlier that such states exist. If it's possible to create a functional Marxist society without compromising the principles of Marxism, then it's hard to argue that those principles were themselves responsible (directly or indirectly) for the atrocities produced by communist states in the 20th century. That's probably a pretty complicated thing to try to analyze, historically.

See and this is where I think you and Cliff are either being disingenuous or just have an ideological blindspot when it comes to liberalism because I could say the same for liberalism. Liberalism is more than just a collection of philosophical tenets regarding human rights. There's an economic component to it that could only inevitably lead to poverty, slavery, environmental degradation, expansionism, exploitation, colonialism, etc., and the fact that pretty much every single liberal state has encountered these issues appears to be proof of that, no?

EDIT: That doesn't even get into the business of discussing liberal states and their history of trying to suppress communism both within and outside their borders. Not exactly protecting dissent.

[DuffMan]

Trump is going to obliterate any records for amounts of Executive Orders.

[Lanny_McDonald]

Originally Posted by ResAlien

No way man.

First you're disqualify the obvious trolls, then you're not standing up for Milo, then you're not protecting Nazis, then you're silencing all dissent, and then your liberal jackboots are stomping squarely on the throat of freedom. Do you want more liberal fascists? That's how you get liberal fascists.

The Corsi in that post is high!

[CorsiHockeyLeague]

Originally Posted by rubecube

See and this is where I think you and Cliff are either being disingenuous or just have an ideological blindspot when it comes to liberalism because I could say the same for liberalism. Liberalism is more than just a collection of philosophical tenets regarding human rights. There's an economic component to it that could only inevitably lead to poverty, slavery, environmental degradation, expansionism, exploitation, colonialism, etc., and the fact that pretty much every single liberal state has encountered these issues appears to be proof of that, no?

I don't necessarily think there is an economic component to it, it's just that liberal western societies have also been more or less exclusively capitalist. They've gone hand in hand. The extent to which capitalism is a necessary result of liberalism seems to me to be a matter of no one having been able to come up with a better economic system yet that ought to displace capitalism, or at least if they have, people haven't come around to it. To the extent they have, it's merely modified capitalism, which is why we've gradually had elements of socialism mixed in to a larger capitalist framework... But even that doesn't suggest that a non-capitalist liberal society is impossible; there's no logical reason to suppose that's the case.

As for whether liberalism inherently leads to poverty, well, our version of poverty is a hell of a lot better than any other situation a poor person might have found him or herself in human history. As for slavery, that one's an obvious "no"; it's been the case in myriad forms of societies, and liberalism - which as Cliff notes, basically reduces to "more freedom" stands in stark opposition to slavery. Liberal states have stood as the best ameliorant to these problems we've ever come up with, notwithstanding that they obviously haven't solved them altogether. It's essentially a version of the old Churchill quote; "it's the worst system aside from all of the others that have been tried".

Expansionism and colonialism? That's arguable - how much of that do you think has been ideological (i.e. "we should spread our views about freedom of expression and association around the globe"), and how much has essentially been geopolitical and independent of that ideology (i.e. "our society has gotten itself to the point that we're more powerful than our neighbours, and we can conquer them and take their stuff, so let's")?

Still, you're probably right on that last front. There's an inherent attraction to the obviously hypocritical notion that "if we could just get everyone to accept our values of tolerance for dissent as a touchstone, we'd all stop killing one another and get along, so let's get started killing the people who don't accept those values." That may be an unavoidable human weakness.

EDIT: That doesn't even get into the business of discussing liberal states and their history of trying to suppress communism both within and outside their borders. Not exactly protecting dissent.

Absolutely agree, but again, I would characterize this as a failure of adherence to liberalism. There is no possible way to characterize HUAC and McCarthyism as a liberal project.

If you're doing it properly, you're totally okay with there being a communist party, or an Islamist party, or whatever, you just object to their ideas and then draw the line where they start telling people to engage in violence (which was that line in the sand we were drawing earlier).

I don't think anyone's arguing that there have been a number of dark periods in the history of liberal democracies where they've failed to live up to their own principles - actually, the fact that we regard those as "dark periods" that we don't ever want to go back to says something good about the principles themselves.

[Parallex]

Originally Posted by DuffMan

Trump is going to obliterate any records for amounts of Executive Orders.

It'll be hard to top Reagan on that in the early going and very hard to top FDR in totality.

[CliffFletcher]

Originally Posted by AltaGuy

Sparked white flight? Really?

I must have overlooked that brief four or five year period of racial harmony in the US between MLK and the Black Panthers.

Seems more likely white people just didn't much like the new rights black people had just earned, doesn't it?

In 1965, a clear majority of Americans supported the Civil Right Act of 1964 (58 per cent for, 31 per cent against).

Here are the Civil Right achievements up to 1967:

De-segregation of military.

De-segregation of schools.

Civil Rights Act.

Voting Rights Act.

Laws forbidding inter-racial marriage declared unconstitutional (Loving v Virginia)


Here are the achievements post 1967, when riots swept black neighbourhoods in dozens of cities, and Stokely Carmichaeal and Black Panthers rose to public prominence:






Maybe I'm missing something. I'd be happy to be educated about the achievements brought about by the use of political violence by black radicals in the late 60s and early 70s.

[rubecube]

Originally Posted by CorsiHockeyLeague

I don't necessarily think there is an economic component to it, it's just that liberal western societies have also been more or less exclusively capitalist. They've gone hand in hand. The extent to which capitalism is a necessary result of liberalism seems to me to be a matter of no one having been able to come up with a better economic system yet that ought to displace capitalism, or at least if they have, people haven't come around to it. To the extent they have, it's merely modified capitalism, which is why we've gradually had elements of socialism mixed in to a larger capitalist framework... But even that doesn't suggest that a non-capitalist liberal society is impossible; there's no logical reason to suppose that's the case.

As for whether liberalism inherently leads to poverty, well, our version of poverty is a hell of a lot better than any other situation a poor person might have found him or herself in human history. As for slavery, that one's an obvious "no"; it's been the case in myriad forms of societies, and liberalism - which as Cliff notes, basically reduces to "more freedom" stands in stark opposition to slavery. Liberal states have stood as the best ameliorant to these problems we've ever come up with, notwithstanding that they obviously haven't solved them altogether. It's essentially a version of the old Churchill quote; "it's the worst system aside from all of the others that have been tried".

Expansionism and colonialism? That's arguable - how much of that do you think has been ideological (i.e. "we should spread our views about freedom of expression and association around the globe"), and how much has essentially been geopolitical and independent of that ideology (i.e. "our society has gotten itself to the point that we're more powerful than our neighbours, and we can conquer them and take their stuff, so let's")?

I don't see how someone can read Locke and not see colonialism as a necessary result of liberalism.