2012 Pres. Election.

[fettpett]

In a sane world where our parties actually covered the spectrum Barack Obama would be a right-wing candidate.

[PoliCon]

In a sane world where our parties actually covered the spectrum Barack Obama would be a right-wing candidate.

[txradioguy]

In a sane world where our parties actually covered the spectrum Barack Obama would be a right-wing candidate.

That would only be true if your namesake...Che Guevara and Idi Amin were the other candidates.

[Wei Wu Wei]

He's right.

Most western nations have actual left-wing parties like communist parties that are decently organized and often hold seats in their respective governments. Even more prevalent are labor parties and the like, which are still fairly mainstream.

The United States has the two strongest pro-capitalist parties in the world, and that is effectively all.

Obama is a "leftist" in the United States the same way 46 degree weather is "VERY cold" in South Texas

[Wei Wu Wei]

That would only be true if your namesake...Che Guevara and Idi Amin were the other candidates.

There are many political parties in advanced western nations with communists and socialists, and they are not taking up armed rebellion against the state.

[CueSi]

In a sane world where our parties actually covered the spectrum Barack Obama would be a right-wing candidate.

He's right.

Most western nations have actual left-wing parties like communist parties that are decently organized and often hold seats in their respective governments. Even more prevalent are labor parties and the like, which are still fairly mainstream.

The United States has the two strongest pro-capitalist parties in the world, and that is effectively all.

Obama is a "leftist" in the United States the same way 46 degree weather is "VERY cold" in South Texas

You say this like it's a bad thing. :p


~QC

[Wei Wu Wei]

You say this like it's a bad thing. :p


~QC

even pro-capitalist liberals like mainstream Democrats directly benefit strongly from having truly left-wing parties, because when there is no Leftist voice, the entire political spectrum swings far to the right in the minds of most people, so popular opinion is that Democrats are "leftists" when in any other country our Democratic party would look like their 'conservative' parties.

Even if you don't agree with the left, it is still unfortunate to have the entire spectrum thrown to one end because political discourse falls dead

[CueSi]

even pro-capitalist liberals like mainstream Democrats directly benefit strongly from having truly left-wing parties, because when there is no Leftist voice, the entire political spectrum swings far to the right in the minds of most people, so popular opinion is that Democrats are "leftists" when in any other country our Democratic party would look like their 'conservative' parties.

Even if you don't agree with the left, it is still unfortunate to have the entire spectrum thrown to one end because political discourse falls dead

I'm gonna sound jingoistic, but I'm gonna say that an idea like that goes against our national character. If we wanted to have a functioning far left party as a true reckoning force, we would have had one by now. But we don't. We were not founded with a view that embraced a socialist/collectivist mindset.

America, as a political and general culture at large has rejected a European far-left view and I think we are better for it.

~QC

[Wei Wu Wei]

I'm gonna sound jingoistic, but I'm gonna say that an idea like that goes against our national character. If we wanted to have a functioning far left party as a true reckoning force, we would have had one by now. But we don't. We were not founded with a view that embraced a socialist/collectivist mindset.

America, as a political and general culture at large has rejected a European far-left view and I think we are better for it.

~QC

The rejection of leftist politics in America was not something that "just happened", as if people decided after long objective study that they didn't like it.

There was a massive propaganda campaign for nearly a century, they arrested people for making anti-war speeches or pro-socialist talks, they sentenced these people to years or decades in federal prisons.

All effective leftist groups were thoroughly infiltrated by the FBI and CIA, they were keeping tabs on anyone who might cause waves, even peaceful leftists such as Martin Luther King Jr, were targeted by the feds.

It was nothing short of a political purge, people were deported, imprisoned, blacklisted, stripped of rights and jobs, and even killed for their leftist beliefs.

Political ideologies do not form in neutral space, they form in space that is already dominated and defined by certain groups, and if those groups see those ideologies as a threat, they will use everything in their power to exterminate it.

Also, I think this obsession with the founders is a little silly, do you believe that political and economic thought in the world simply peaked during the same time period that America was founded? and in the ensuing two and a half centuries, after the country and the entire world has undergone massive, previously unimaginable technological, philosophical, economic, and social changes, that nothing was improved on?

Obviously, I hope we can agree that areas like science and some areas of social relations like race relations have changed since those times, so why is it so hard to accept that political, philosophic, and economic theories also may have improved since then? That's the benefit of standing on the shoulders of giants, you can reach even higher. Of course, that's not to say that something is better simply because it is newer, but I'm a little wary of insisting that they are infallable.

Even writers that I am very partial to, I must recognise that their views were limited based on the historical contexts they were written in.

[Starbuck]

.....
There was a massive propaganda campaign for nearly a century, they arrested people for making anti-war speeches or pro-socialist talks, they sentenced these people to years or decades in federal prisons....... It was nothing short of a political purge, people were deported, imprisoned, blacklisted, stripped of rights and jobs, and even killed for their leftist beliefs..........

Deported? For their beliefs? Who?.......Or are you actually talking about someone who was deported because of their actions?

Killed? For their beliefs? Who?.........Or are you referring - just to pick one - to MLK, who indeed was killed for his beliefs, although not, as you imply, by the U.S. government.