Political spectrum, Trumpism, and ideological semantics (Split from Covid-19 miscellany)

[Metaphor]

Well yeah, as long as you ignore his plan to "Make America Great Again" which is a very conservative sentiment and presume that undoing progressive change is actually progressive, then yeah, toss that dictionary into the shredder and Trump is a "progressive".

Well some here appear to believe that America was it its most progressive at some unspecified date in the 1960s and has moved rightward since then. So perhaps Trump was the leftist you wanted all along.

 

[Hermit]

I also ask: what policies do you believe could be called 'far left'? What policies 'left'?

The Bolsheviks were far left. They wanted to bring about communism, the abolition of privately owned means of production, by means of armed revolutions. Slightly less far left were the Mensheviks. They aimed at the same destination, but sought to get there by gradual parliamentary reforms.

So let me see if I've got this straight. Mensheviks and Bolsheviks want the same economic system; the difference is Mensheviks also care about human rights and about letting the people who'll have to live in that system get a vote on when or if to implement it.

Yes, you got the gist of what I wrote, which was essentially that both Mensheviks and Bolsheviks aimed at a social and economic system completely different to capitalism. Both wanted a communist society in which the means of production were completely owned and controlled by the working classes. Where they differed from each other is that the Bolsheviks wanted to reach that goal via a violent revolution, the Mensheviks aimed at getting there gradually by working within the parliamentary institution.

I.e., Mensheviks are normal people and Bolsheviks are fascists. So you're arguing that being fascist means Bolsheviks are further to the left?

This is where we part company. Let me give you a postage stamp sized picture of communism. Outrageously simplified, broad brushstrokes, but I'm not about to embark on a lecture.

Communism was designed to be a bottom up democracy and started off like that. 'Soviet' means council, assembly, advice, harmony, or concord. All decision making was supposed to start on the factory floors and in the village squares. Everyone within their respective community could become a councillor and everyone with in each community could vote for who the councillors will be. Whenever these soviets made a decision they sent a delegate off to the same place other delegates from similar grass roots soviets went. Thus they formed regional soviets. Up the chain they went until they reached the top level of soviets of the the Russian, Ukrainian, Byelorussian and Azerbaijan Republics, which together formed the Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic, where decisions ultimately originating at grass roots level were turned into laws. This actually worked - very briefly. The protracted civil war following the October revolution quickly brought the system down in a screaming heap, but that is another story. Here, I merely want to outline that the Bolsheviks planned the path toward True Communism™ to run along a bottom-up democratic structure.

Fascism is a completely different kettle of fish.

Firstly, the very name derives from fascio littorio, a bundle of rods tied around an axe, an ancient Roman symbol of the authority of the civic magistrate carried by his lictors, which could be used for corporal and capital punishment at his command. From the outset fascism is a form of far-right, authoritarian ultranationalism. Its early implementations (Italy, Spain and Germany) rejected any form of democracy from the word go. Governance was meant to originate in a personal dictator, and that is how it worked out in practice.

Secondly, while fascists had at times uneasy relations with capitalism, they never intended or attempted to abolish private ownership of the means of production. Hitler maintained a cordial relationship with bankers and all owners of big industrial concerns, most prominent among them being Gustav Krupp, Fritz Thyssen, Albert Voegler, Friedrich Flick, and Emil Kirdorf. (I'll get into the question of what the word 'socialist' is doing in the National Socialist German Workers' Party later if you want me to, although it is not relevant here.)

So, no, Bolsheviks are not fascists. Therefore I cannot possibly argue that being fascist means Bolsheviks are further to the left. Further to the left of what anyway?

 

[Jimmy Higgins]

Well yeah, as long as you ignore his plan to "Make America Great Again" which is a very conservative sentiment and presume that undoing progressive change is actually progressive, then yeah, toss that dictionary into the shredder and Trump is a "progressive".

Well some here appear to believe that America was it its most progressive at some unspecified date in the 1960s and has moved rightward since then. So perhaps Trump was the leftist you wanted all along.

I'm curious, do you really want this explained, though it is complicated? It can be, but I fear wasting my time. But here is a brief synopsis.

1) Civil Rights Act is passed and Nixon/GOP enact the Southern Strategy, an attempt to court the racist Southern Democrats into their party via racism. While the shitstorm in America that currently exists and is leading us to oblivion can be dated back to the Civil War (or even the Louisiana Purchase), it is the Southern Strategy that is key here. It was the GOP's "Making Blacks Niggers Again" movement.

2) It slowly rolled out and then come the 1980s, the Rush Limbaugh/AM Radio movement begins along side the Reagan Admin that crushed America with debt, changes to how we deal with the mentally ill, appointment of far-right wingers to SCOTUS and abolition of the Fairness Doctrine, which allow the likes of Limbaugh to breed over the radio waves. Reagan appointed Scalia and Rehnquist. It should be noted O'Connor and Kennedy were very conservative, except when it came to Civil Rights, and they almost always sided in cases that led to expanding the access of rights. For Republican replacements on SCOTUS, Roberts is the closest to either of these, but he isn't very close.

3) Newt Gingrich and the Contract for America. The GOP at this point has decided, it is party first, we must destroy the Democrats. Obstruction of Clinton was unprecedented. Alongside the flourishing of AM Radio with Limbaugh and company becoming more and more partisan, the GOP aimed at destroying Clinton instead of governing. This adversarial relationship was cited by the 9/11 Commission as one reason that Clinton was not able to address the threat of bin Laden.

4) AM Radio gains a friend in cable Fox News, which is going to explode in popularity, after an attempt to televise Limbaugh didn't work. The 2000 Election came and was a fucking nightmare. The George W. Cheney administration hit hard to the right, used 9/11 as a pretense to ignore better judgment and invaded/occupied Iraq. People that dared to question this had their patriotism questioned. This was a newish thing that we hadn't seen in decades in this country. W appoints radical Alito to the bench, who thinks that the GOP has a Unitary Executive power in the Constitution and Roberts, a guy who is trying to look not crazy partisan, but is very partisan.

5) Obama runs for office, racism abounds, obstruction of his Administration is off the charts, even as he tries to steer America in the Great Recession, which he walks right into. The Tea Party is born. The Southern Strategy has blossomed. Fox News organizes astroturfed protests over the election of Obama, not questioning the legitimacy of the election, but just protesting he won. Obama and the Dems manage to pass weak healthcare reform bill which is vilified successfully by the GOP as well as the GOP somehow blaming the Dems in state level power for the Great Recession...

6) ...and the 2010 bloodbath is the next stepping stone in the death of our democracy. The GOP was insanely margins in the election, which gave them control of everything, most importantly state legislatures, which gerrymandered the fuck out of the Federal and State Legislature districts. States like Ohio don't even need to hold elections anymore. This has led to solidly red control over states that aren't solidly red, but very much purple. The GOP are becoming bullet proof, as evidenced by McConnell stealing a SCOTUS seat appointment.

7) Fucking Trump. Solidifies radical SCOTUS with Barrett, Kavanaugh, and Gorsuch. And in the end, incites a riot that requires Congress to be evacuated in an attempt to actually steal the election. And he was voted the top choice by CPAC for the nomination in 2024.

So... what about the progressive stuff? Make no mistake, the progressive changes in the US were almost exclusively Court ordered. Anyone that knows anything about the United States, knows that coming upon Civil Rights either takes a hundred years or SCOTUS. Brown v Board of Education, Loving v Virginia, Lawrence v Texas (of which wasn't a 9-0 result!) were all major Civil Right victories that states did not enact through legislation, but were forced by the courts. And today, the Supreme Court is wickedly to the right of any court we've likely had, these changes are going to dissolve and judicial order is going to be put in great harm because undoing these decisions could be excruciatingly hard from a legal standard to hold onto the importance of precedence.

 

[Bomb#20]

I.e., Mensheviks are normal people and Bolsheviks are fascists. So you're arguing that being fascist means Bolsheviks are further to the left?

This is where we part company. Let me give you a postage stamp sized picture of communism. Outrageously simplified, broad brushstrokes, but I'm not about to embark on a lecture.

Communism was designed to be a bottom up democracy and started off like that. 'Soviet' means [lecture embarked on]

Yes, yes; that's what Bolsheviks were in their own narrative that they were the heroes of. Here's a more objective description of the mentality that became Bolshevism:

"The triumph of Mr. Marx and his group has been complete. Being sure of a majority which they had been long preparing and organizing with a great deal of skill and care, if not with much respect for the principles of morality, truth, and justice as often found in their speeches and so seldom in their actions, the Marxists took off their masks. And, as befits men who love power, and always in the name of that sovereignty of the people which will, from now on, serve as a stepping-stone for all those who aspire to govern the masses, they have brazenly decreed their dictatorship over the members of the International."​

- Bakunin, on being excommunicated from the International

Works of Mikhail Bakunin 1872

Fascism is a completely different kettle of fish.

Firstly, the very name derives from fascio littorio, a bundle of rods tied around an axe,[lecture continues]

Yes, yes; but I said they're fascists, not Fascists. I was using the word in the vernacular sense, for anybody with totalitarian tendencies.

So, no, Bolsheviks are not fascistsFascists.

FIFY. Of course Bolsheviks are fascists. But all this is a digression, a dispute over mere words.

Therefore I cannot possibly argue that being fascist means Bolsheviks are further to the left. Further to the left of what anyway?

Further to the left of what do you think? Further to the left of the people you said they were further to the left of. Further to the left of Mensheviks. Let's try this again.

So let me see if I've got this straight. Mensheviks and Bolsheviks want the same economic system; the difference is Mensheviks also care about human rights and about letting the people who'll have to live in that system get a vote on when or if to implement it.

I.e., Mensheviks are normal people and Bolsheviks are totalitarian schmucks who don't give a damn about human rights or about letting the people who'll have to live in their system get a choice. So you're arguing that being totalitarian schmucks who don't give a damn about human rights or about letting the people who'll have to live in their system get a choice means Bolsheviks are further to the left?

What leftist principle -- the degree to which one adopts being a measure of one's distance to the left -- do Bolsheviks exhibit more of than Mensheviks?

 

[Metaphor]

So... what about the progressive stuff? Make no mistake, the progressive changes in the US were almost exclusively Court ordered. Anyone that knows anything about the United States, knows that coming upon Civil Rights either takes a hundred years or SCOTUS. Brown v Board of Education, Loving v Virginia, Lawrence v Texas (of which wasn't a 9-0 result!) were all major Civil Right victories that states did not enact through legislation, but were forced by the courts. And today, the Supreme Court is wickedly to the right of any court we've likely had, these changes are going to dissolve and judicial order is going to be put in great harm because undoing these decisions could be excruciatingly hard from a legal standard to hold onto the importance of precedence.

Right, but court ordered stuff is real. Same-sex marriage exists because of a court case, not because all 50 states independently decided to have it. I get that. But that still means America has same-sex marriage. Same-sex marriage is undoubtedly a permanent situation and it is more left than the exact same America without same-sex marriage.

It seems to me conservatives are accused of a nostalgia for a past that never was. Yet here I see a lot of people denying a present that is right in front of them.

 

[Hermit]

I.e., Mensheviks are normal people and Bolsheviks are fascists. So you're arguing that being fascist means Bolsheviks are further to the left?

This is where we part company. Let me give you a postage stamp sized picture of communism. Outrageously simplified, broad brushstrokes, but I'm not about to embark on a lecture.

Communism was designed to be a bottom up democracy and started off like that. 'Soviet' means [brief outline snipped]

Yes, yes; that's what Bolsheviks were in their own narrative that they were the heroes of. Here's a more objective description of the mentality that became Bolshevism:

"The triumph of Mr. Marx and his group has been complete. Being sure of a majority which they had been long preparing and organizing with a great deal of skill and care, if not with much respect for the principles of morality, truth, and justice as often found in their speeches and so seldom in their actions, the Marxists took off their masks. And, as befits men who love power, and always in the name of that sovereignty of the people which will, from now on, serve as a stepping-stone for all those who aspire to govern the masses, they have brazenly decreed their dictatorship over the members of the International."​

- Bakunin, on being excommunicated from the International

Works of Mikhail Bakunin 1872

I gave you a brief outline of what actually happened shortly after the October Revolution. Bakunin's words concern events that occurred 45 years earlier. Both he and Karl Marx were members of the International Workingmen's Association, whose members were a motley lot of socialists, communists and anarchists. There were dozens of factions, each claiming its ideology is the way to Utopia. This caused plenty of infighting and struggle for dominance. By the late 1860s the Association polarised into two factions. Marx headed the communists and Bakunin the anarchists. In the struggle for dominance Bakunin's faction lost out. He was expelled in 1872. His comment is about that event. Although he always accused Marxist communism of being authoritarian, it has no bearing on what happened in1917-8.

Fascism is a completely different kettle of fish.

Firstly, the very name derives from fascio littorio, a bundle of rods tied around an axe,[lecture continues]

Yes, yes; but I said they're fascists, not Fascists. I was using the word in the vernacular sense, for anybody with totalitarian tendencies.

It's a misuse of the word. Regardless of whether it is capitalised, it has connotations that apply to right wing totalitarians, but not to left wing totalitarians. Its vernacular use is restricted to members of the right side of the political spectrum. Instead of writing "Bolsheviks are fascists" you would have been better off writing "Bolsheviks are totalitarians". Then everybody would have understood what you meant. Except of course they were not until the civil war threw the spanner in the works that was the soviet system at the outset.

Therefore I cannot possibly argue that being fascist means Bolsheviks are further to the left. Further to the left of what anyway?

Further to the left of what do you think? Further to the left of the people you said they were further to the left of. Further to the left of Mensheviks.

Their social, politic and economic aims are identical. Trying to achieve them through a revolution is neither left nor right. You wouldn't describe George Washington as a far left leader, would you?

Let's try this again.

So let me see if I've got this straight. Mensheviks and Bolsheviks want the same economic system; the difference is Mensheviks also care about human rights and about letting the people who'll have to live in that system get a vote on when or if to implement it.

I.e., Mensheviks are normal people and Bolsheviks are totalitarian schmucks who don't give a damn about human rights or about letting the people who'll have to live in their system get a choice. So you're arguing that being totalitarian schmucks who don't give a damn about human rights or about letting the people who'll have to live in their system get a choice means Bolsheviks are further to the left?

Well, that is an improvement.

What leftist principle -- the degree to which one adopts being a measure of one's distance to the left -- do Bolsheviks exhibit more of than Mensheviks?

None. See above.

 

[Bomb#20]

- Bakunin, on being excommunicated from the International

Works of Mikhail Bakunin 1872

I gave you a brief outline of what actually happened shortly after the October Revolution. Bakunin's words concern events that occurred 45 years earlier. Both he and Karl Marx were members of the International Workingmen's Association,<snip>

Yes, that's what I said. You keep posting painfully unnecessary lectures.

Although he always accused Marxist communism of being authoritarian, it has no bearing on what happened in1917-8.

It has every bearing on what happened in 1917-1918 and on everything that followed. Lenin and his successors acted exactly the way Bakunin foresaw Marxists would act, exactly the way Marx himself acted to the extent that he could. This popular notion that Bolsheviks were decent human beings until the civil war pushed them onto a different path is self-serving mythology. They were totalitarian schmucks all along.

Yes, yes; but I said they're fascists, not Fascists. I was using the word in the vernacular sense, for anybody with totalitarian tendencies.

It's a misuse of the word.

Thank you, my fellow wordnazi.

Regardless of whether it is capitalised, it has connotations that apply to right wing totalitarians, but not to left wing totalitarians. Its vernacular use is restricted to members of the right side of the political spectrum.

Correction: left-wingers prefer for its vernacular use to be restricted to members of the right side of the political spectrum. The notion that only rightists can be fascists is of a piece with the notion that only white people can be racists and only non-state-actors can be terrorists. It's a self-serving rhetorical get-out-of-jail-free card.

Instead of writing "Bolsheviks are fascists" you would have been better off writing "Bolsheviks are totalitarians". Then everybody would have understood what you meant.

I'm pretty sure everybody but you did understand what I meant.

Except of course they were not until the civil war threw the spanner in the works that was the soviet system at the outset.

Except of course they were, from the beginning. It's not as though the October Revolution overthrew the Czar. The Bolsheviks overthrew the socialist president and the parliamentary democracy they were a major opposition party in, because they didn't give a damn about human rights or about letting the people who'd have to live in their system get a choice, because they were totalitarian schmucks, because that's the kind of person Marx's authoritarian faction of communist utopianism appeals to, just as Bakunin described.

Further to the left of what anyway?

Further to the left of what do you think? Further to the left of the people you said they were further to the left of. Further to the left of Mensheviks.

Their social, politic and economic aims are identical. Trying to achieve them through a revolution is neither left nor right.

My point exactly.

You wouldn't describe George Washington as a far left leader, would you?

Obviously not. (Nor a fascist either. The U.S. founders started a revolution but that's on the British. It was their choice to not let Americans participate in parliamentary democracy, not Americans' choice. The Bolsheviks had a choice. The Bolsheviks were represented. The Bolsheviks were representatives.)

I.e., Mensheviks are normal people and Bolsheviks are totalitarian schmucks who don't give a damn about human rights or about letting the people who'll have to live in their system get a choice. So you're arguing that being totalitarian schmucks who don't give a damn about human rights or about letting the people who'll have to live in their system get a choice means Bolsheviks are further to the left?

Well, that is an improvement.

Yes, I conformed to your wordnazi predilections so we could get past the dispute over mere words, and talk substance. But then you didn't answer the question. On what do you base your assertion that the Mensheviks were "slightly less far left"?

What leftist principle -- the degree to which one adopts being a measure of one's distance to the left -- do Bolsheviks exhibit more of than Mensheviks?

None. See above.

My point exactly. So does this mean you're persuaded that the Mensheviks were actually every bit as far left as the Bolsheviks?

 

[Jimmy Higgins]

So... what about the progressive stuff? Make no mistake, the progressive changes in the US were almost exclusively Court ordered. Anyone that knows anything about the United States, knows that coming upon Civil Rights either takes a hundred years or SCOTUS. Brown v Board of Education, Loving v Virginia, Lawrence v Texas (of which wasn't a 9-0 result!) were all major Civil Right victories that states did not enact through legislation, but were forced by the courts. And today, the Supreme Court is wickedly to the right of any court we've likely had, these changes are going to dissolve and judicial order is going to be put in great harm because undoing these decisions could be excruciatingly hard from a legal standard to hold onto the importance of precedence.

Right, but court ordered stuff is real. Same-sex marriage exists because of a court case, not because all 50 states independently decided to have it. I get that.

Do you? Because the significance is notable. It means we would likely not have it in all 50 states without SCOTUS. And you mention same sex marriage... when SCOTUS finally decriminalized gay sex just in 2003. And that case was 6-3! We had three justices that was against the findings of the majority.

But that still means America has same-sex marriage. Same-sex marriage is undoubtedly a permanent situation and it is more left than the exact same America without same-sex marriage.

And now we have a super-majority far right-wing SCOTUS that is on track to reverse Roe v Wade in steps. And they are currently looking at reviewing a case where there is no longer a case so they can limit Government regulation and oversight.

It seems to me conservatives are accused of a nostalgia for a past that never was. Yet here I see a lot of people denying a present that is right in front of them.

The other issue is the rubber stamping of legislation that isn't remotely Constitutional. Like Texas' lets make abortion illegal without making it illegal and by legalizing "religiously based" discrimination. This is the moving backwards part.

 

[Metaphor]

Do you? Because the significance is notable. It means we would likely not have it in all 50 states without SCOTUS. And you mention same sex marriage... when SCOTUS finally decriminalized gay sex just in 2003. And that case was 6-3! We had three justices that was against the findings of the majority.

The fact that the decriminalisation of gay sex (in Texas, I believe) was a SCOTUS decision is a sign that the SCOTUS was considerably more left-wing than it was in prior times. SCOTUS would not have found gay sex being criminalised in Texas to be an unconstitutional law if this case had been in the 1950s, would it?

If some states would not have same-sex marriage right now if it were not for the SCOTUS decision in 2015 (and I reckon that'd be the case), it's a sign that the country's policies (or rather, this specific policy) is actually to the left of the population. Yet others argue in this thread that in general policies are to the right of the population.

And now we have a super-majority far right-wing SCOTUS that is on track to reverse Roe v Wade in steps. And they are currently looking at reviewing a case where there is no longer a case so they can limit Government regulation and oversight.

There's that language again: a "far right" SCOTUS. I sincerely believe you cannot know what you are saying when you call the SCOTUS "far right". In any case, you are arguing that the current SCOTUS could move the country to the right on a particular policy. I am not disputing that any individual policy might be more to the right than a previous one, but the general sweep of the average of all policies is to the left over time.

The other issue is the rubber stamping of legislation that isn't remotely Constitutional. Like Texas' lets make abortion illegal without making it illegal and by legalizing "religiously based" discrimination. This is the moving backwards part.

What SCOTUS is doing right now, and whether it will influence things leftward or rightward, is not what my argument is about. I am asking why people have such a skewed perspective on politics in America that Bernie Sanders is 'slightly left of center' and Obama, Biden, and Clinton are rubbing shoulders with Trump on the 'right' or 'far right'.

I agree that there are far left positions that have no purchase in federal American politics. However, there are far left positions rife in media and academia. There are far right positions that have no purchase in federal American politics, also, though they have some purchase in media but nearly no influence in academia.

 

[Hermit]

Although he always accused Marxist communism of being authoritarian, it has no bearing on what happened in1917-8.

It has every bearing on what happened in 1917-1918 and on everything that followed. Lenin and his successors acted exactly the way Bakunin foresaw Marxists would act, exactly the way Marx himself acted to the extent that he could. This popular notion that Bolsheviks were decent human beings until the civil war pushed them onto a different path is self-serving mythology. They were totalitarian schmucks all along.

Congratulations for using the more appropriate adjective again.

Bakunin foresaw nothing.

Yes, yes; but I said they're fascists, not Fascists. I was using the word in the vernacular sense, for anybody with totalitarian tendencies.

It's a misuse of the word. Regardless of whether it is capitalised, it has connotations that apply to right wing totalitarians, but not to left wing totalitarians. Its vernacular use is restricted to members of the right side of the political spectrum. Instead of writing "Bolsheviks are fascists" you would have been better off writing "Bolsheviks are totalitarians". Then everybody would have understood what you meant. Except of course they were not until the civil war threw the spanner in the works that was the soviet system at the outset.

Thank you, my fellow wordnazi.

Regardless of whether it is capitalised, it has connotations that apply to right wing totalitarians, but not to left wing totalitarians. Its vernacular use is restricted to members of the right side of the political spectrum.

Correction: left-wingers prefer for its vernacular use to be restricted to members of the right side of the political spectrum. The notion that only rightists can be fascists is of a piece with the notion that only white people can be racists and only non-state-actors can be terrorists. It's a self-serving rhetorical get-out-of-jail-free card.

I am opposed to the vernacular use of 'fascist' and 'nazi'. Regrettably, some right wingers as well as some left-wingers misuse both words.

Except of course they were not until the civil war threw the spanner in the works that was the soviet system at the outset.

Except of course they were, from the beginning. It's not as though the October Revolution overthrew the Czar. The Bolsheviks overthrew the socialist president and the parliamentary democracy they were a major opposition party in, because they didn't give a damn about human rights or about letting the people who'd have to live in their system get a choice, because they were totalitarian schmucks, because that's the kind of person Marx's authoritarian faction of communist utopianism appeals to, just as Bakunin described.

There was no socialist president. The February revolution resulted in a provisional government headed by Prince Georgy Lvov until July, then by Alexander Kerensky until 25 October. Their official title was "Minister-Chairman of the Russian Provisional Government". Lvov was staunchly aristocratic, Kerensky solidly bourgeois.

Don't let Kerenky's membership of the Trudoviks, a socialist, non-Marxist labour party and of the Petrograd Soviet fool you. Both were stepping stones at the service of Kerensky's ambition. He needed the assistance of the communists and socialists to countervail the power of the tsarists. When he succeeded Lvov as Minister-Chairman, The Petrograd Soviet became the chief adversary of the Provisional Government.

Nothing in the government's eight point program can be described as socialist. It was classic liberalism from top to bottom.

Kerensky's supposed socialism was exposed as a sham when he campaigned tirelessly in favour of the biggest feature contributing to the suffering of the masses - the war with Germany. His effort culminated in the disastrous Kerensky offensive in July 1917.

After the fall of the provisional government Kerensky escaped to France. When WWII started he moved to the US and spent the rest of his working life in the employ of the Hoover Institution, a conservative American public policy and research institution that promotes personal and economic liberty, free enterprise, and limited government.

Further to the left of what anyway?

Further to the left of what do you think? Further to the left of the people you said they were further to the left of. Further to the left of Mensheviks.

Their social, politic and economic aims are identical. Trying to achieve them through a revolution is neither left nor right.

My point exactly.

You wouldn't describe George Washington as a far left leader, would you?

Obviously not. (Nor a fascist either. The U.S. founders started a revolution but that's on the British. It was their choice to not let Americans participate in parliamentary democracy, not Americans' choice. The Bolsheviks had a choice. The Bolsheviks were represented. The Bolsheviks were representatives.)

I.e., Mensheviks are normal people and Bolsheviks are totalitarian schmucks who don't give a damn about human rights or about letting the people who'll have to live in their system get a choice. So you're arguing that being totalitarian schmucks who don't give a damn about human rights or about letting the people who'll have to live in their system get a choice means Bolsheviks are further to the left?

Well, that is an improvement.

Yes, I conformed to your wordnazi predilections so we could get past the dispute over mere words, and talk substance. But then you didn't answer the question. On what do you base your assertion that the Mensheviks were "slightly less far left"?

From last Thursday, where Bolsheviks and Mensheviks were mentioned for the first time:

The Bolsheviks were far left. They wanted to bring about communism, the abolition of privately owned means of production, by means of armed revolutions. Slightly less far left were the Mensheviks. They aimed at the same destination, but sought to get there by gradual parliamentary reforms.

It is merely the different methods through which they sought to attain their common aim that places the former slightly to the left of the latter, but for the sake of the original question, what is far left, that slight difference is irrelevant.

ETA: It can be argued that left anarchism is even further to the left than the Bolsheviks and Mensheviks were.

It wants a future society that replaces private property with reciprocity. In this society, no one owns things. People do not work for money to buy things. They do their work because it is the best for society and the things they need are given to them without cost. It wants a society where there is no one in charge. Each person does what they need to without others to lead them. The term left anarchism is sometimes used with the same meaning as libertarian socialism, left libertarianism, or socialist anarchism.

 

[Swammerdami]

The Atlantic Monthly has an article about the "ideology" on display at the recent CPAC meeting.

The right-wing media personality Candace Owens wants to warn the conservative movement about horny bears. In fact, she's been waiting for five years to relay a factoid she promises will unlock everything.
. . .
"Male bears actually kill their cubs," she tells the audience, which doesn't quite know how to react. It's just like humans, she adds. "When female bears give birth and are nursing their cubs, they cannot go into heat." And here comes the really "weird" part, she announces: "If a nursing mother loses her cubs, the lactation will stop and she will once again become receptive to breeding. So male bears kill their cubs for sex. Really, that's what it comes down to."

Okay, it turns out, it's not just like humans. But the point is that mama bears will fend off horny dads to protect their cubs. And that's just what conservative women are doing. They are fending off the likes of Anthony Fauci, who wants to inject their kids with "never-ending doses" of COVID vaccines, who instruct parents to put "a filthy cloth over the mouth of your innocent child," and who teach students "to judge one another on the very basis of their skin."

In Owens's description, the woke elite have pedophiliac tendencies. ... It's a variation of a theme that I keep hearing as I move from event to event at CPAC. Ben Carson, who was Donald Trump's secretary of housing and urban development, describes the progressive gestalt as "child abuse." Granted, his examples don't quite seem to match the force of his metaphor. In preschool, "they have these books about these worms. They say the worms can be male or female. They make the worms seem like really cool individuals. What are they doing? They're planting seeds."
. . .

The brains of [the right-wing] establishment is Matt Schlapp, a lobbyist who has worked for Koch Industries, Comcast, Verizon, and other corporate interests. He is the chair of CPAC and the impresario of the four-day event, and he has scheduled himself ample time in the program. Now he's onstage to explain the sort of good works he likes to perform. But before he starts, he has a question for his flock.

"Have any of you been canceled?"

He pauses briefly -- apparently his question was not rhetorical. Thousands of conservatives have gathered in the arena-size ballroom -- blond women dressed in Fox News formal, men in suits and cowboy hats, a few stray biker beards. Much of the room responds to Schlapp, shouting "Yes!": They have been canceled.

Once upon a time, it was anti-communism that knitted the movement together. Today, even as a new cold war breaks out, anti-wokeism is the glue that adheres the social conservatives who want to ban critical race theory, the populists who hate Big Business, the libertarians who still just want to drown the government in the bathtub. The slogan hovering over the room is Awake, not woke. Nearly every speech includes a denunciation of the grand inquisitors of cancel culture.

[Nigel Farage and] [m]any other speakers at CPAC have tried to pivot away from their own record on the subject [of Vladimir Putin]. Days after praising Putin as "savvy," former Secretary of State Mike Pompeo told the conference, "We've seen a Russian dictator now terrorize the Ukrainian people." But Farage's backtracking is unique. The thing was, until recently, he thought Putin's demands were awfully reasonable. "He wanted to get back, at least I thought, to get back the Russian-speaking areas [of Ukraine]." In other words, Farage was cool with a partial invasion of Ukraine. Unfortunately, Putin went further. "I'd always thought we were dealing with someone who was logical," he pleads. Well, it turns out he was wrong about that. In the end, though, it was all Joe Biden's fault, anyway.

 

[Metaphor]

The Atlantic Monthly has an article about the "ideology" on display at the recent CPAC meeting.

In Owens's description, the woke elite have pedophiliac tendencies. ... It's a variation of a theme that I keep hearing as I move from event to event at CPAC.

Sections of the left certainly do. There is a movement to add 'minor attracted persons' (what normies would call pedophiles) to the LGBTQIA+ 'umbrella'.

 

[Metaphor]

What is the reason? Is this alleged connection even valid?

Do you have any evidence that the behaviours you are talking about are more 'severe' in English-speaking countries?

In particular, do you actually have any familiarity with how right-wing countries may be in South America, Europe, Africa, and Asia are?

One possible explanation is isolation. France and Germany are in close proximity to each other, and to Slavs, Italians, Dutch and Spaniards. Diversity breeds a broader world-view. Australia and the U.K., on the other hand, are surrounded by water; Canada is adjacent to no country but another English-speaking country,

Much of the right-wings' hatred is directed against immigrants. 15% of France's population is of non-European ancestry, and the far-right candidate got 34% in the last Presidential election. Will the right-wings in Continental countries grow in strength as demographics shift?

How do you reconcile these two paragraphs? You appear to be saying X is true, and the exact opposite of X is also true.

Australia is geographically 'isolated' but it is not insular: thirty percent of people in Australia were born overseas. But you believe Australians are particularly prone to being 'right wing'?

Hungary is a landlocked country in central Europe. It has many neighbours, and anybody familiar with Hungary would say it is led by a more right-wing government than the United States. And it is not an Anglophone country.

 

[Hermit]

The Atlantic Monthly has an article about the "ideology" on display at the recent CPAC meeting.

In Owens's description, the woke elite have pedophiliac tendencies. ... It's a variation of a theme that I keep hearing as I move from event to event at CPAC.

Sections of the left certainly do. There is a movement to add 'minor attracted persons' (what normies would call pedophiles) to the LGBTQIA+ 'umbrella'.

Link?

Didn't think so.

Paedophiles want to be accepted by the LGBT community claiming they are minorities​

The group called MAPS have even created a rainbow "Pride" flag​

2018-07-11

Paedophiles are trying to gain acceptance to the LGBT community by rebranding themselves.

In a bid to gain acceptance, they have rebranded themselves as MAPs or “Minor Attracted Persons” and have gone so far to even create a rainbow “Pride” flag for Gay Pride, but Twitter user, Communist Fish, posted a picture back in June to warn children to stay away.

They wrote: “PSA TO MINORS: IF YOU SEE THIS “””PRIDE””” FLAG ANYWHERE BE WARNED this flag is for MAPS, which stands for minor attracted person (s) THIS IS A FLAG FOR PEDOPHILES [sic]”

The group attempt to claim that paedophiles are misunderstood people and if they do not act upon their attraction to children, they shouldn’t be marginalised.

 

[Metaphor]

Link?

Didn't think so.

Am I to assume you don't believe me?

 

[Hermit]

Link?

Didn't think so.

Am I to assume you don't believe me?

Oh, I believe you, once you provide a link to credible evidence of a movement by the left to add paedophiles to the LGBTQIA+ umbrella.

 

[Metaphor]

Link?

Didn't think so.

Am I to assume you don't believe me?

Oh, I believe you, once you provide a link to credible evidence of a movement by the left to add paedophiles to the LGBTQIA+ umbrella.

You yourself linked to evidence. But I also did not say 'by the left'. I said sections of.

 

[Hermit]

Link?

Didn't think so.

Am I to assume you don't believe me?

Oh, I believe you, once you provide a link to credible evidence of a movement by the left to add paedophiles to the LGBTQIA+ umbrella.

You yourself linked to evidence. But I also did not say 'by the left'. I said sections of.

The link did not constitute evidence of a movement by the left nor by sections of the left to add paedophiles to the LGBTQIA+ umbrella, and you have yet to provide one.

 

[Metaphor]

Link?

Didn't think so.

Am I to assume you don't believe me?

Oh, I believe you, once you provide a link to credible evidence of a movement by the left to add paedophiles to the LGBTQIA+ umbrella.

You yourself linked to evidence. But I also did not say 'by the left'. I said sections of.

The link did not constitute evidence of a movement by the left nor by sections of the left to add paedophiles to the LGBTQIA+ umbrella, and you have yet to provide one.

The Academy has its share of leftist pedophiles like Foucault, to less prominent apologists like "queer", "non-binary" Allyn Walker .

Of course, the popular elements of the movement are all on Twitter.

 

[Swammerdami]

In particular, do you actually have any familiarity with how right-wing countries may be in South America, Europe, Africa, and Asia are?

"Right-wing" and "driven by racist hatred" are NOT synonyms. (Although bigotry based on race, religion or sexual orientation is often used as a tool by authoritarians to cement their power.)

One Asian country I AM familiar with is Thailand. Here are wealthy ethnic Chinese, often dominant in business; Muslims; many gays, lesbians and transsexuals; low-wage migrants from Burma and Cambodia; many Thai nationals whose first language is not Thai; and many expat residents from Europe. Yet despite these "opportunities" for bigotry, racism and other bigotries are almost non-existent compared with Anglophone countries. (Decades ago, some politicians may have tried to foment racist memes, but unsuccessfully.) In fact in recent years, Thailand has become even LESS racist due to anti-racism messages on social media — messaging not from government or politicians, but from Thai people themselves.

One possible explanation is isolation. France and Germany are in close proximity to each other, and to Slavs, Italians, Dutch and Spaniards. Diversity breeds a broader world-view. Australia and the U.K., on the other hand, are surrounded by water; Canada is adjacent to no country but another English-speaking country,

Much of the right-wings' hatred is directed against immigrants. 15% of France's population is of non-European ancestry, and the far-right candidate got 34% in the last Presidential election. Will the right-wings in Continental countries grow in strength as demographics shift?

How do you reconcile these two paragraphs? You appear to be saying X is true, and the exact opposite of X is also true.

Complex situations often appear to have contradictions.

What I argued is that countries in contact with different ethnicities may develop understanding and acceptance of diversity. Isolated countries, on the other hand, may be susceptible to bogeyman fears of "the Other."

As evidence of this — correct me if this half-remembered stat is wrong — anti-Muslim bigotry is highest in U.S. states with low Muslim population, anti-black bigotry highest in U.S. states with few blacks, and so on.