Oh, good.

No, the way in which NOI comes in is that left-wing activists and prominent figures refuse to distance themselves from an anti-Semite, and therefore give a platform to anti-Semitic views. That is the left’s problem. As I said before:



So please stop strawmaning.

Sorry, I don’t have time to count your ad hominems against me.

Sure, I totally agree that it's problematic that left-leaning people are legitimizing antisemitic groups for political convenience. I'm not sure what specifically it says about the left versus politicians in general, and I definitely don't agree that refusing to shun an antisemite is the same thing as being one. I agree that it's bad though.

It's just... that's not what you'd actually been arguing. I was satisfied by your "maybe my opinion has been changed" post, and if you want I'm perfectly willing to leave it at that.

I can't speak for Reid, but I'm trying very hard to discuss this in good faith. There are at least two people here who claim to be baffled by what you're saying. If you feel your opinion is being misrepresented, please entertain the possibility that you haven't expressed that opinion as well as you would have liked.

To be clear, I never made this assertion, so please do stop implying that I have made arguments that I have not made.



I’m happy with leaving the previous discussion behind, but I can’t say that I find your attempt to represent yourself as acting in good faith can be taken too seriously when you end you selectively summarize my view and end it with a declarative statement like this one:



And normally such attempts don’t involve value-laden statements like this one:



Normally such attempts involve questions.

Reid accused me of ignoring points that I made repeatedly, and you repeatedly claimed I made arguments that I didn’t make, so I can’t say that I find the argument that there’s anything intrinsically baffling about what I wrote very persuasive.

I find this baffling squared. I don't think I've accused you of ignoring anything at all. This entire time I've pretty much been centered around the assertion that NOI is not a left-wing group. Since you weren't direct about this, it was easy to assume you were long in some chain of reasoning which would defend that. Since apparently that's not your stance, good, I'm glad we agree on that issue.

Otherwise, what you're saying is not really provoking much of a response.

^^^

BTW, I did catch that you were joking. It's why I responded with that video, because comparing yourself to a terrorist is pretty bold, even sarcastically.

Man so, so much bad faith here. Not worth going through it all again.

You said "NOI is an example of antisemitism on the left" and then revised your position as "left-leaning groups refusing to shun NOI is an example of antisemitism on the left". Maybe not in those exact words, but you described those relationships in the context of providing examples of left-wing antisemitism. I can't see any other way to interpret what you've written in this thread. Perhaps that isn't what you meant, but all I can be expected to do is respond to what you've written. If you meant something differently then you should have expressed your opinion more clearly.

I asked you a question using the same logical structure and you responded with an inconsistent answer. That means your argument was unsound. It's not value-laden or ill faith to point that out, whether or not it hurts your feelings to have someone do it.

Okay but I quoted you, so I'm not sure how we've gotten to where we are now.

Eversor, you just didn't express yourself well this time. It's fine, it happens to everyone and there's no shame in it. Nobody's out to get you here. Learn from the confusion and every time you'll do a little better.

Well, I assume he got that was in reference to the overreaching definition Homeland Security came up with.



Nah.



For some reason I always thought I was reasonable when I got here and clearly explained things. Then I went back and looked and saw that I was open about not engaging in debate here even way back 15 years ago due to my experience on TACC. This in only in response to the above quote because of the patience aspect. I lost patience a long time ago.



But the right owns theirs?



You give me too much credit.

That's some good advice. Happens to all of us.

In an inflammatory post earlier I was going to comment on the connection between the left and radical Islam (term used for clarity, not what I actually believe radical Islam to be) but I decided not to as it was going to open up another stream of posts that I might not get to. The left's affinity for radical Islam isn't ideological. It's an Enemy of My Enemy is My Friend sort of thing. There will be a reckoning some day.

Didn't both Republicans and Democrats do it at some point? Obama with Syria, and Reagan with Afghanistan? (Actually, come to think of it, wasn't the Mujahideen support started under Carter?)

At any rate, I'm not sure "The Enemy of My Enemy is My Friend" is so much a "leftist" thing as it is a "CIA" thing.

Naturally. Patience is the cornerstone of learning.

Someone isn’t left wing just because they’re black.

And the right’s affinity for Wahhabism is what? Would you consider planes crashing into buildings a reckoning, or is it only a consequence when it’s a left wing person being shot by a Brownshirt

Well I think the case of our involvement with situations like the Muhaj in Afg. you see that we were fighting a proxy war with an international rival. What I was alluding to was the democrats fighting a proxy war with a domestic rival. That is a good point, though.

One interesting thing about the direction this thread has taken is that the terms 'left' and 'right' are being understood universally. I actually don't think Wookie is using the terms in that way, though. For most Americans, 'left' and 'right' are synonyms for whatever peculiar groups at the time happen to be clustered around them. For example, I doubt Wookie sees al Qaeda as a right wing movement in any meaningful way in connection with right wing movements in the United States, and I have to admit I myself find the connection somewhat tenuous and philosophical a point.

That's not to say that Jon`C (and Reid) can't successfully argue that the 'left' and 'right' are meaningfully universal concepts in some sense (the comparisons and patterns drawn upon to define them seem to make sense to me).

The PKK is actually ideologically left wing in what they do, if you're curious what that would look like.

Even now you’re misrepresenting my view.

It is not that refusing to shun NOI is an example of antisemitism.

Rather, my view is that it is a problem that left-wing activists and prominent figures refuse to distance themselves from an anti-Semite, and therefore they give a platform to anti-Semitic views.

Could I have said that more clearly? It is literally word for word what I wrote:



I can’t do your reading for you.

Anyway, I’m done.

I wasn't representing your view at all, I was paraphrasing that exact post you quoted in its original context as I understood it. I'm aware that isn't what you meant to say, but it is the way I read your post. I also maintain that there is no other way I could have interpreted what you wrote given its context (especially since you never explicitly walked back your earlier claims about NOI being left-wing).

Regarding what you actually meant to write: Yes, I agree. It's bad. Left-wing people shouldn't associate with racists, terrorists, or violent revolutionaries. It's wrong, and besides that it has never turned out well even when "successful".

I'm sorry your actual point didn't turn out to be as interesting a discussion as our misunderstanding was.

Right on cue, Mike Pence has reminded us of America's deadliest form of anti-Semitism: Evangelical instrumentalist Zionism.

Meanwhile, in Brazil, the newly elected Jair Bolsonaro is poised to deliver everything Wookie has ever wanted: Riches for other people, and dead gays.

If fascism isn't so great, then why do the job creators like it so much?

If megacorps are so efficient, then why does the business world worship CEOs who manage to turn around a sinking ship like they are gods on Earth?

Latest information confirms that humans are indeed killing off pretty much all of the wildlife on earth at a pretty crazy rate:

https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2018/oct/30/humanity-wiped-out-animals-since-1970-major-report-finds

People always imagine the future of our species in like a Fallout 4 or Mad Max way where everything is cool and edgy. It's not going to be cool. Humans through sheer cruel insensitivity are going to basically genocide wildlife on the planet and make it uninhabitable. Really no other narrative makes sense for us. There's not even cruelty or malice. Just shortsided stupidity and indifference.

who the **** cares about other species. Their not white

We're all so privileged to be living through capitalism's crisis mode.

Capitalism is an undamped feedback loop. It's always in crisis. If it's not a crisis for you, it's a crisis for someone else.

Yah, things were much worse last time humans rapidly destroyed life on earth.

Hey Michael MacFarlane, did you know the president has the authority to amend the constitution by executive order? I betcha didn’t, since you’ve only studied the constitution and not read it

Especially good news this morning: Someone told our big dumb President that he could rewrite the 14th Amendment with an executive order.

Actually, far from it. As I said earlier, that was meant to be my offensive definition until I actually wrote it and just basically hit it out of the park. Now my comment about socialism being implemented through taxation was in response to people saying that what I had defined was taxation but that's dumb. Even if I agree that taxation can be government theft of private property that would be as far as it goes. Socialism involves the redistributive aspect. Now, I intentionally did zero research before defining socialism because I wanted to answer Jon`C's question with some intellectual honesty even though I still don't know why he needed it answered so desperately. I don't really argue against his socialist views much nor run around calling everybody I disagree with socialists. Anyway, wikipedia says, "Socialism is a range of economic and social systems characterized by social ownership and workers' self-management of the means of production as well as the political theories and movements associated with them," and further goes on to say, "There are many varieties of socialism and there is no single definition encapsulating all of them, though social ownership is the common element shared by its various forms." Now I grant you Jon, and maybe several of you, are doubtlessly better read on the topic but of course he would be. He's very passionate about socialism. I actually think Jon believes in socialism for noble reasons.

Now, the reason I don't get back to every topic I get engaged in here is sometimes I just don't get back in a timely manner and either forget or it just doesn't seem appropriate to bring it back up.





You know, I've actually been wondering for years when the left wing media would just come out and start calling radical islam right wing extremists.

That statements probably about half correct. I've actually thought a bit about the left-right nomenclature. Some of you might remember my brilliant political circle much earlier in the thread. It was an exercise I was going through because defining politics as left vs. right is really pretty dumb but I was also trying to keep it simpler than a complex three or four dimensional concept because it has to be to be understandable. The problem is that we also talk a lot about other things as being right or left.

Earlier someone didn't like to think of the Nation of Islam being left wing. Well, as far as extremism goes, they don't seem to be but the most often ally themselves politically with those opposed to who are defined as being right wing. And then as Jon points out both the major political parties (does it bother non-Americans when we refer to our own parties, governments, and issues as if they're the only ones?) are relatively right of center.

I think left and right is relative to both the subject and the person using the term. If a neo-nazi group is considered right wing but oppose what are considered here to be right wing policies, does the neo-nazi really belong to the right? If an eco-terrorist is considered left wing but is an anarchist does that person really belong to the left?

The terms are simple but the issues aren't. Something I don't appreciate is how Jon holding pretty left wing views [legitimately] refers to everything he disagrees with and so much of what's wrong as the right. Well, of course it is relatively to you but then we're left to infer that the right is always bad because Jon pretty much says it is and all that stuff you think is the left is really the right and eat the rich.

Finally, wherever you personally consider yourself on the left/right spectrum there is no reason to believe that you need to feel any association with extremism that people tell you falls in that spectrum.



What would make for interesting study is to find out through what method did it become the norm for children of aliens to be considered citizens. It's a little more complicate than that simple statement but really not much but, yeah, wth? I didn't really dig into this but it seemed like it was from some minor interview or something and so I wonder if this is just out a week before the election to scare people.

Just out of curiosity, do you think that the 14th amendment requires citizenship be granted to every child born in America of foreign parents? This is an honest question, by the way. It's always one of the things that comes up in this discussion.

Excluding corner cases covered by the jurisdiction clause, like children of foreign diplomats and (hypothetical) invading armies, yes. The meaning of the amendment is, you know, pretty plain.

I’m not using the terms relatively at all. Left and right comes from the French Revolution, where the revolutionaries were divided into two camps: in favour of social dynamism, or in favour of social structure. The terms are simple, you just never learned what they mean.

The mistake you’re making is assuming that left-wing means the same thing as opposition to the Republican Party. Both American political parties are right-wing because America and everything America does is slavishly devoted to sustaining the power of its elites. Your left-wing media is actually a right-wing pro-business media that expends it’s effort promoting the interests of its private owners. The media is singularly opposed to the Republican Party for the simple reason that the Republican Party is bad for business. Republicans are good for rich people, because of the tax cuts and law and order and anti-democracy stuff, but they’re bad at keeping markets stable and putting product on shelves. So being good for rich people isn’t the same thing as being good for business. That’s something else Americans don’t seem to understand.

Anarchists are generally considered left-wing. Violent revolutionaries sometimes are too, like Lenin and Mao. If you want to hear me criticize the left wing, I’ll oblige you: Socialism can never be achieved through violence, and the people who try are either stupid, mad, or both. Anarchism is idiocy. There are definitely bad things about the left and bad people on the left.

The line is when you vote for it, I think.

Inherited from common law prior to the founding of America, codified by the 14th amendment to prevent the racists from ovening people.

No. Agents of foreign governments are not generally considered subject to the jurisdiction of the United States when they are present there, so I wouldn’t expect them to gain citizenship at birth (this includes the children of spies). Other visitors are subject to the United States while present there. This is also the law in Canada, as inherited from England.

Note that the constitution does not define citizenship, and prior to the 14th amendment did not define what it means to acquire citizenship from birth. The writers of the constitution did not deem it necessary to write such things because they were common knowledge of learned men (i.e. lawyers). The 14th amendment was only necessary to put the hicks in their place.

Honest question: why sit there and think about it instead of reading about it? Try reading about the history of the terms and how they evolved. I found them much easier to talk about after doing so, because the meanings are less confusing than they're made to be.

I'll keep it straightforward: the right-wing is almost always defending or trying to assert some kind of social hierarchy, privileges, customs, etc. In the French Revolution, this was the rights of the nobility. In America, this was the rights of the robber barons. The KKK sought a racial hierarchy as did the Nazis. The 20th century in America is a story of business owners (right-wing) trying to assert themselves as privileged people with more power and influence than common people. The left stands in opposition to such hierarchies. The Soviets were on the side of the people in the civil war, they never allied with traditional elites and basically eliminated them. Antifa (the original) were in opposition to the rise of fascism and antisemitism. The left of the French Revolution wanted to end noble privileges, such tax exemptions and the right to collect taxes. The left of the 1930's wanted to restrict the social control business owners had over the people.

Ultimately, it becomes easy to determine who is right-wing or who is left-wing by how they think about and interact with hierarchy and power. Now, nobody is ever totally pro-hierarchy or totally anti-hierarchy, this is why left and right find context on specific issues in a society. The biggest one today is wealth inequality. Are there people who defend the radical social inequality produced by wealth inequality? Yeah, they're to the right on that issue. Unless you're one of the privileged people it's all about whether you're a cuck or not, tbh.



Probably, yes, considering neo-Nazis tend to believe in racial hierarchies and eco-terrorists tend to be so left they don't see there even being a hierarchy between humans and animals.



The issue is people are feeling right-wing extremism is more serious and more prevalent today, and while people have some legitimate places to complain, left-wing extremism isn't nearly as deadly or mainstream.

I'm no Cuck, I'm just a temporarily embarrassed Bull.

It's not obviously clear that what has been written about the French revolution has to do with the groups being referred to in American politics as right and left. As far as I can tell, to conservatives, the term "left" is just a bucket in which they conflate everybody who isn't a total wingnut.

ilu