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Logan View Drop Down
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Points: 36334 		Direct Link To This Post Posted: May 27 2016 at 09:58
Originally posted by Seventh Arrow Seventh Arrow wrote:

Originally posted by The Dark Elf The Dark Elf wrote:

Originally posted by The T The T wrote:

By the way, and though it was already a given, it's official: 

Trump has reached 1237 delegates. He's our GOP nominee.
'Murica 

And form over function triumphs once again.


America now has two mainstream left-wing parties. Unbelievable.


That America has two mainstream right-wing parties is much more believable to me.
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Points: 65760 		Direct Link To This Post Posted: May 27 2016 at 10:05
Originally posted by Logan Logan wrote:

That America has two mainstream right-wing parties is much more believable to me.

Agreed. The Green Party is as close to mainstream as the left-wing gets in the US.
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Points: 17493 		Direct Link To This Post Posted: May 27 2016 at 10:07
Originally posted by JJLehto JJLehto wrote:

Something that I've not seen discussed, from the media to people, is the impact "winner take all" states had in helping Trump. 

Remember South Carolina? Where Trump won 33% of the vote but 100% of the delegates?
Before that, and after for a bit, he kept splitting delegates and we all were positive there would be a brokered convention? THEN we got to the winner take all (or most) states where Trump then started cruising to victory. 
Imagine if it was proportional vote like the Democrats do? There were 3, sometimes 4, candidates who each could've gotten delegates instead of Trump taking near to all, he would've never been on track to make 1237 and Cruz maybe Kasich would've had more motivation to stay in. 

I think a lot of changes need to happen to our primary process, one being the GOP should really do away with winner take all. It's dumb, kind of undemocratic, and thanks to Trump there's all the motivation they needLOL

I think parties should take back the entire power to nominate. That way this circus is avoided and they can choose who they think best represents them. And without the need for these gigantic expensive primaries maybe even other parties can be heard among the noise. 
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Points: 17493 		Direct Link To This Post Posted: May 27 2016 at 10:09
Originally posted by Seventh Arrow Seventh Arrow wrote:

Originally posted by The Dark Elf The Dark Elf wrote:

Originally posted by The T The T wrote:

By the way, and though it was already a given, it's official: 

Trump has reached 1237 delegates. He's our GOP nominee. 

'Murica 

And form over function triumphs once again.

America now has two mainstream left-wing parties. Unbelievable.
The only way to consider the Democrats and (more so) the Republicans "left-wing" is you're actually a member of the Ku Klux Klan or of the NSDAP or you are Franco reincarnated. 

Actually, even by those standards the Republicans are quite the opposite of left wing. 

By the way, who are you 
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Points: 2223 		Direct Link To This Post Posted: May 27 2016 at 10:15
Originally posted by JJLehto JJLehto wrote:

Something that I've not seen discussed, from the media to people, is the impact "winner take all" states had in helping Trump. 

Remember South Carolina? Where Trump won 33% of the vote but 100% of the delegates?
Before that, and after for a bit, he kept splitting delegates and we all were positive there would be a brokered convention? THEN we got to the winner take all (or most) states where Trump then started cruising to victory. 
Imagine if it was proportional vote like the Democrats do? There were 3, sometimes 4, candidates who each could've gotten delegates instead of Trump taking near to all, he would've never been on track to make 1237 and Cruz maybe Kasich would've had more motivation to stay in. 

I think a lot of changes need to happen to our primary process, one being the GOP should really do away with winner take all. It's dumb, kind of undemocratic, and thanks to Trump there's all the motivation they needLOL

 
it's an idiotic system, but would a proportional one that gave you Cruz or Rubio as a candidate really improve things?  The problem is not so much the way Republicans select their candidates, as that all their candidates are so appallingly terrible.
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Points: 24 		Direct Link To This Post Posted: May 27 2016 at 10:41
Originally posted by The T The T wrote:

Originally posted by Seventh Arrow Seventh Arrow wrote:

Originally posted by The Dark Elf The Dark Elf wrote:

Originally posted by The T The T wrote:

By the way, and though it was already a given, it's official: 

Trump has reached 1237 delegates. He's our GOP nominee. 

'Murica 

And form over function triumphs once again.

America now has two mainstream left-wing parties. Unbelievable.
The only way to consider the Democrats and (more so) the Republicans "left-wing" is you're actually a member of the Ku Klux Klan or of the NSDAP or you are Franco reincarnated. 

Actually, even by those standards the Republicans are quite the opposite of left wing. 

By the way, who are you 

The Democrats have embraced full-on socialism. It doesn't get more left-wing than that. The GOP now have a life-long limousine liberal as their head. The man leading the Republican party has positions (when we can discern what they actually are) that are indistinguishable from Hillary Clinton's. The only way to consider these things to be "right-wing" is if you're buddies with Noam Chomsky.
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Points: 65760 		Direct Link To This Post Posted: May 27 2016 at 10:47
Originally posted by Seventh Arrow Seventh Arrow wrote:

The Democrats have embraced full-on socialism. It doesn't get more left-wing than that. The GOP now have a life-long limousine liberal as their head. The man leading the Republican party has positions (when we can discern what they actually are) that are indistinguishable from Hillary Clinton's. The only way to consider these things to be "right-wing" is if you're buddies with Noam Chomsky.

lol, there is nothing remotely socialist about the democrats, and I say that as an actual socialist. The reason the GOP is indistinguishable from Clinton's positions is that she is to the right of more traditional Dems like Sanders.
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Points: 24 		Direct Link To This Post Posted: May 27 2016 at 11:06
Originally posted by A Person A Person wrote:


lol, there is nothing remotely socialist about the democrats, and I say that as an actual socialist. The reason the GOP is indistinguishable from Clinton's positions is that she is to the right of more traditional Dems like Sanders.

Even if so, would you say that the Democrats are left-wing? It seems strange to deny it.

I don't think Clinton is to the right of Sanders, except that her Clinton Foundation loves soaking up gigantic amounts of cash for personal use. As to her policies, she seems to just mimic whatever Sanders is doing. I think I kind of see what you mean on that point, though.

As for Democrats being socialists, perhaps they don't fit the dictionary definition of socialism, but they embrace its hallmarks, like welfare, medicare, social security, public schooling, identity politics, etc.
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Points: 36334 		Direct Link To This Post Posted: May 27 2016 at 11:28
At least in most of the Western world, I think both the left, centrists and the right tend to embrace those (or at least give those lip service).

I wonder how well our past conservative PM of Canada, Stephen Harper, would have fared if his platform had been to abolish welfare, medicare, social security, and public schooling.
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Points: 2223 		Direct Link To This Post Posted: May 27 2016 at 12:15
Originally posted by Seventh Arrow Seventh Arrow wrote:

Originally posted by A Person A Person wrote:


lol, there is nothing remotely socialist about the democrats, and I say that as an actual socialist. The reason the GOP is indistinguishable from Clinton's positions is that she is to the right of more traditional Dems like Sanders.

Even if so, would you say that the Democrats are left-wing? It seems strange to deny it.

I don't think Clinton is to the right of Sanders, except that her Clinton Foundation loves soaking up gigantic amounts of cash for personal use. As to her policies, she seems to just mimic whatever Sanders is doing. I think I kind of see what you mean on that point, though.

As for Democrats being socialists, perhaps they don't fit the dictionary definition of socialism, but they embrace its hallmarks, like welfare, medicare, social security, public schooling, identity politics, etc.
 
Identity politics is a hallmark of socialism?  I'm trying to figure out what you mean there.
 
Welfare (by which I assume you mean state support for those that cannot work for some reason, including lack of jobs), medicare (state supported medical care for those that are poor, disabled or elderly), social security and public schooling are not hallmarks of socialism (although socialist societies may have instituted some of those ideals, such as pensions for older citizens, first), but rather hallmarks of modern society.  I doubt that even the most right-wing parties anywhere oppose public education, although some may argue what the curriculum would look like.
 
Having lived in the UK and the Netherlands, I know what left-wing politics look like. We don't have them. The Democrats, even Sanders, are centrist-left in America. In Europe, they would be centrist-right on the political scale.
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Points: 65760 		Direct Link To This Post Posted: May 27 2016 at 12:56
Originally posted by Seventh Arrow Seventh Arrow wrote:

Originally posted by A Person A Person wrote:


lol, there is nothing remotely socialist about the democrats, and I say that as an actual socialist. The reason the GOP is indistinguishable from Clinton's positions is that she is to the right of more traditional Dems like Sanders.

Even if so, would you say that the Democrats are left-wing? It seems strange to deny it.

I don't think Clinton is to the right of Sanders, except that her Clinton Foundation loves soaking up gigantic amounts of cash for personal use. As to her policies, she seems to just mimic whatever Sanders is doing. I think I kind of see what you mean on that point, though.

As for Democrats being socialists, perhaps they don't fit the dictionary definition of socialism, but they embrace its hallmarks, like welfare, medicare, social security, public schooling, identity politics, etc.

Looking at the democratic party's economic and foreign policies, it is very difficult to find anything that is further left than center-right imo. As far as social programs go, those are part of a social democratic system. Those things aren't socialist though. I do not know of anyone in the party who has gone further than saying that worker coops are good. Keynesian style state regulation stuff isn't leftist, just some mitigation within a right-wing system.


Edited by A Person - May 27 2016 at 12:57
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Points: 17493 		Direct Link To This Post Posted: May 27 2016 at 13:19
Originally posted by emigre80 emigre80 wrote:

 
Identity politics is a hallmark of socialism?  I'm trying to figure out what you mean there.
 

Let me prejudge and be a bad person and just guess that he's not too friendly or sensitive towards LGBT and race issues.  
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Points: 65760 		Direct Link To This Post Posted: May 27 2016 at 13:22
Also since I have posted about it so many times already, here is another post about Clinton's work in Haiti.
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Points: 17493 		Direct Link To This Post Posted: May 27 2016 at 13:22
By the way, what do people here think of this talked-about possibility of a Sanders - Trump debate? 

I consider it a really stupid idea. For one, Sanders isn't even the Democratic nominee yet (and he won't be); it's just a publicity-spotlight grabbing stunt; he's no master debater (neither is Trump but he's a master liar and bully), and he may end up doing more damage by making the alternative to Trump look ridiculous. 

Opinions? 
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Points: 2223 		Direct Link To This Post Posted: May 27 2016 at 13:32
Originally posted by The T The T wrote:

Originally posted by emigre80 emigre80 wrote:

 
Identity politics is a hallmark of socialism?  I'm trying to figure out what you mean there.
 

Let me prejudge and be a bad person and just guess that he's not too friendly or sensitive towards LGBT and race issues.  
 
That would be my guess, but I'm still trying to work out the "hallmark of socialism" comment. Because usually socialists believe that if you fix the economic issues, equality for all will follow (yes, that's an incredibly un-nuanced version of it, I don't have time for the full 5,000 word explication of socialist views of identity politics.)
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Points: 17493 		Direct Link To This Post Posted: May 27 2016 at 13:42
I guess from an American perspective, the ones with sensitivity and understanding of these issues are on the left, and since Mr New Member thinks even TRUMP is left wing, is a normal conclusion for him that identity politics are a "hallmark of socialism", because of course a hallmark of "conservatism" or whatever is supposedly right for him is manliness, machoismo, family, tradition, property, etc. 
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Points: 65760 		Direct Link To This Post Posted: May 27 2016 at 13:50
Originally posted by emigre80 emigre80 wrote:

Originally posted by The T The T wrote:

Originally posted by emigre80 emigre80 wrote:

 
Identity politics is a hallmark of socialism?  I'm trying to figure out what you mean there.
 

Let me prejudge and be a bad person and just guess that he's not too friendly or sensitive towards LGBT and race issues.  
 
That would be my guess, but I'm still trying to work out the "hallmark of socialism" comment. Because usually socialists believe that if you fix the economic issues, equality for all will follow (yes, that's an incredibly un-nuanced version of it, I don't have time for the full 5,000 word explication of socialist views of identity politics.)

I think generally socialists are pretty intersectional and support various causes that would be part of identity politics. There are some though that dismiss race/gender/etc issues and say they are divisive and class issues should come first, but they are called brocialists. LOL
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Points: 17493 		Direct Link To This Post Posted: May 27 2016 at 13:51
Also, socialism is about class struggle after all. It's not such a big jump to consider race-gender-etc a type of "class" if we can call it that way (in the eyes of the right winger)  
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Points: 24 		Direct Link To This Post Posted: May 27 2016 at 14:23
Originally posted by emigre80 emigre80 wrote:

Originally posted by Seventh Arrow Seventh Arrow wrote:

Originally posted by A Person A Person wrote:


lol, there is nothing remotely socialist about the democrats, and I say that as an actual socialist. The reason the GOP is indistinguishable from Clinton's positions is that she is to the right of more traditional Dems like Sanders.

Even if so, would you say that the Democrats are left-wing? It seems strange to deny it.

I don't think Clinton is to the right of Sanders, except that her Clinton Foundation loves soaking up gigantic amounts of cash for personal use. As to her policies, she seems to just mimic whatever Sanders is doing. I think I kind of see what you mean on that point, though.

As for Democrats being socialists, perhaps they don't fit the dictionary definition of socialism, but they embrace its hallmarks, like welfare, medicare, social security, public schooling, identity politics, etc.
 
Identity politics is a hallmark of socialism?  I'm trying to figure out what you mean there.
 
Welfare (by which I assume you mean state support for those that cannot work for some reason, including lack of jobs), medicare (state supported medical care for those that are poor, disabled or elderly), social security and public schooling are not hallmarks of socialism (although socialist societies may have instituted some of those ideals, such as pensions for older citizens, first), but rather hallmarks of modern society.  I doubt that even the most right-wing parties anywhere oppose public education, although some may argue what the curriculum would look like.
 
Having lived in the UK and the Netherlands, I know what left-wing politics look like. We don't have them. The Democrats, even Sanders, are centrist-left in America. In Europe, they would be centrist-right on the political scale.

Identity politics is just marxism with a new coat of paint. It takes class warfare and transposes it to race warfare, gender warfare, etc.

To say that welfare, social security, etc., are hallmarks of modern society instead of hallmarks of socialism ignores cause in favour of effect. These things didn't come about as a result of capitalism, but as a result of socialist ideology. You can only call them centrist if you're not aware of the overall standard of comparison. In other words, the democrats are only centrist if you compare them with other shades of left, such as communism. But if viewed through the full spectrum of left to right, then they're very much on the left side of the fence.
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Points: 24 		Direct Link To This Post Posted: May 27 2016 at 14:32
Originally posted by The T The T wrote:

I guess from an American perspective, the ones with sensitivity and understanding of these issues are on the left, and since Mr New Member thinks even TRUMP is left wing, is a normal conclusion for him that identity politics are a "hallmark of socialism", because of course a hallmark of "conservatism" or whatever is supposedly right for him is manliness, machoismo, family, tradition, property, etc. 

I don't get your fixation on me being a new member. So what? Aren't new people allowed to participate in discussions?

Trump is left wing, he has traditionally supported abortion, socialized medicine, big government, and is anti-free trade. Yes, he talks like a conservative when it comes to immigration, but that's about it.

Also, machismo is a very phony and self-conscious behaviour. I believe it's only used by people with low self-esteem.
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