ALL HAIL PRESIDENT TRUMP

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Aim_Deep wrote:

To those who dont think trump is a moron - his Iran tough talking belies that.

June 25 - large protest against Iranian revmgime at Grand Bazaar

9:30pm EST July 21 - 3:30am EST July 22 - Iranian dissidents protest water shortages
12pm EST July 22-23 - #IslamicRegimeMustGo trends on Iranian Twitter accounts
7:44-8:15pm EST July 22 - Pompeo tweet trio
~11:00pm EST July 22 (~7:30am Iran time) - Iranian president Rouhani warns Trump "do not play with the lion's tail, because you will regret it eternally" and "war with Iran is the mother of all wars"
11:24pm EST July 22 - all-caps Trump tweet

Just so y'all understand the context.

This is Vietnam 2.0

US command is doing body counts now as if that means anything. Taliban controls 75% of country and "afghan" army hasnt taken back any territory since Trump changed ROE and slight surge. If fact they are losing about 150 men a week and territory which is all that matters. Those who rule the streets rule the country.

https://www.longwarjournal.org/archives/2018/07/nato-command-touts-body-count-of-taliban-irreconcilables.php

Trump needs to GTFO. His foreign policy is terrible in general. Continuing to illegally occupy Syria, can't "win" in Afghanistan, Supporting KSA's relentless siege and bombing of Yemen,, etc. And now wants to start shit with Iran lol.

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Aim_Deep wrote:

Taliban controls 75% of country and "afghan" army hasnt taken back any territory since Trump changed ROE and slight surge. If fact they are losing about 150 men a week and territory which is all that matters. Those who rule the streets rule the country.

How much of the economy do they control? That is why we are still there; all of Afghanistan’s economy is around U.S. bases, and they don’t want us to leave. The rest of the warfighting is against like 12 people and their army of hostages and mercenaries.

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faerwin wrote:

I actually pondered that myself yesterday and came to the conclusion that there is no center.

You have either the left or the right and their "base" position. Then you can be left or right of that position but there's never a position that directly in the middle. There's just positions that is closer to reaching the other side but can't cross it.

Essentially, the left emphasize society as the more important thing while the right emphasize the individual as the more important.

The deep end of each is: Only the elites/core counts and only I count (in the sense the rest is just ripe for exploiting/murdering/stealing from if it benefit). Both of which are very similar and as such, is essentially a reverse horseshoe in that concept. Hunger games is a good example of deep end left, thievery and murderous robbers/poachers/slavers are a good example of the deep end right.



As for the basic positions of the left and of the right, I'd say it's "the group is more important than the individual vs the individual is more important than the group". Now, before you try to correct me about how the right is about freedom while the left isn't, it's not true. Freedom isn't exclusive to one side nor is suppression of freedom. When one's could buy slaves (which is very far right), I think we can agree that it was a suppression of freedom. Just the same way that far left can suppress freedom with dictatorial behavior (north korea ie).


Now, take healthcare as an issue.

base left is: the government should take care of the sicks.
base right is: the individual should take care of himself.

Let's both go towards the so called middle with both

left: the government should take care of the sicks unless their sickness is caused by choice (ie: smoking, drug abuse).

right: the individual should take care of himself unless they can't and it's a life threatening situation.


Both of those are relatively minor steps toward the middle but both of them creates a situation in which the base position relent some ground to the opposite side.

Good example of the left making up what the right is.

In the USA, slavery was a left wing position. Maybe read about Andrew Jackson, left winger Democrat President, supported early socialist stuff in the USA.

As president, Jackson sought to advance the rights of the "common man" against a "corrupt aristocracy"

This is early US Democratic "code words" for let's hurt rich people, in a poorly thought out attempt attempt to help poor people.

Then go read about Abraham Lincoln, very far right conservative. Extremely pro individual, anti tax ect.

Abraham Lincoln -

“You cannot help the poor by destroying the rich. You cannot strengthen the weak by weakening the strong. You cannot bring about prosperity by discouraging thrift. You cannot lift the wage earner up by pulling the wage payer down. You cannot further the brotherhood of man by inciting class hatred. You cannot build character and courage by taking away people's initiative and independence. You cannot help people permanently by doing for them, what they could and should do for themselves.”

It's funny, in one quote, we can see Lincoln bash much of the evil stuff liberal democrats are currently doing in the USA.

If you just think about your own definition of left/right, it should be obvious: right is pro-individual so therefore anti slavery. It just makes sense. The left puts individual rights at the bottom of priority list, so therefore they supported slavery, since slaves helped society have cheap stuff.

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faerwin wrote:

I actually pondered that myself yesterday and came to the conclusion that there is no center.

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Khoranth wrote:

In the USA, slavery was a left wing position.

le sigh

Guys, the objective center isn't difficult to understand. If you want government to stay completely out of a certain issue, that's objectively centrist. If there is a dispute between two sides and a third party doesn't act to benefit either side, that's strict neutrality. Literally no government at all is NOT a rightwing position, it is the most centrist position possible. (Most supposedly anarchic ideologies at some point advocate for the enforcement of a rule or rules punishible by force, and thus are not actually anarchic; however, theoretically, anarchism would be centrist.)

Free market capitalism is NOT a far right position. It is a mostly centrist position -- I say "mostly" because the legal infrastructure requisite for free markets may have a slight left or right leaning.

Not that long ago, my definition of centrism was not controversial. Libertarianism was widely regarded as a centrist movement, of which both "left-libertarians" and "right-libertarians" were subfactions. Back then, libertarianism did not align with the Republican Party to nearly the degree it does now.

However, there are MANY policy positions held by Republicans and other members of the mainstream right that advocate expanding government power, not reducing it. A simple rule of thumb is: can this policy position be achieved exclusively be repealing or reducing current law or its enforcement? If the answer is "no," then it's either left or right. Here's a list of rightwing policies that advocate for BIGGER government (or defend against a reduction in government):
* criminalizing abortion
* criminalizing homosexual marriage and/or sex
* requiring ID or proof of citizenship to vote
* increasing enforcement of immigration law against illegal aliens
* defending the criminalization of marijuana or "magic mushrooms"
* defending intellectual property law

Right-wing policies are NOT the policies of a completely laissez-faire minimalist government. They are policies that make government bigger and wield it against the left. I myself have advocated a few such policies (immigration enforcement, ban on second-trimester abortions) which is why I describe myself as center-right. But what makes such policies rightwing is their incompatibility with strict libertarianism, not their agreement with it.

"Left" is NOT a blanket term for any and every possible action a government takes! If it was, open borders would be a far right policy!

BTW, Khoranth: Slavery was a rightwing position. Although technically refusal to prosecute someone for the crime of slavery could be seen as centrist, in practice slavery required laws that recognized slaves as property of the owner and would ensure return in the event of escape. This government behavior harmed a persecuted minority by refusing to acknowledge their individual rights and benefitted only the 2% of Southern whites who owned slaves.

Criminalized abortion isn't big government, it is simply promoting the right of the life of the child.

Unless you are arguing that being dependent on someone gives them the right to kill you.
And you are saying having the right to kill people dependent on you, is a priority over having the right to life.

If the right wing is defined as individual rights over the whole of society, I fail to see how slavery is a right wing position.

Because the farther right you go, the more you have the "right" to do whatever the fuck you please. This include cheating, law abuses, slavery, theft, mugging, intimidation and murder. The farther right you go, the further the individual becomes the center of the universe and at the same time, the morality of a human being disappear. (the same is true on the far left)

That said, slavery was a far right thing because it benefited the individual, not the society. Egyptian slavery, for example, would be a far left position.

Russian Gulags would also be considered far left.

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faerwin wrote:

the farther right you go, the more you have the "right" to do whatever the fuck you please. This include cheating, law abuses, slavery, theft, mugging, intimidation and murder.

It's worth noting that the inaction of one government does not prevent another government from forming and taking action. There isn't a single monotheistic Godverment on this planet, just human governments -- all less than omnipotent, all less than omniscient, and all ultimately mortal. Any entity that enforces rules under the penalty of force is a government, even if those laws are "shut the fuck up," "keep your hands on the floor" and "put your wallet in the bag."

So the fear is not that all governments would be impartial with their inaction -- that would be great if it happened, it's just pretty unrealistic. The fear is that the impotence of the government we control today would make it weak and supplanted by new governments we cannot control and that are very far from being impartial.

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faerwin wrote:

Because the farther right you go, the more you have the "right" to do whatever the fuck you please. This include cheating, law abuses, slavery, theft, mugging, intimidation and murder. The farther right you go, the further the individual becomes the center of the universe and at the same time, the morality of a human being disappear. (the same is true on the far left)

That said, slavery was a far right thing because it benefited the individual, not the society. Egyptian slavery, for example, would be a far left position.

Russian Gulags would also be considered far left.

I definitely see your point on different types of slavery, but how do you explain the demonstratable fact that it was far right politicians, like Lincoln, who opposed slavery, and populist left wing politicians who supported slavery, in the USA?

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Khoranth wrote:

far right politicians, like Lincoln

*facepalm*