If you think that folks who disagree with you are, in general, corrupt or evil, this is a good sign that your brain has failed. Try rebooting, or purchasing a new one.
In my universally anti-groupist approach of pointing out that leftism, conservativism, and libertarianism are all coherent, important approaches to the world, I have found a leftism definition that appears more compelling than my standard one-liner. I'm still chewing on it, and find myself less than 75% in agreement, but consider it a very worthwhile read regardless. The author is eminent left-libertarian Gary Chartier, and the article is here.
Personally I score a solid 2/3 leftist...and I bet if Gary and I sat down for a cup of cream, we could hammer out our differences on Exclusion to a position we were both 85% happy with.
Politics are, at their core, ethical positions and statements about importance. Specifically about what is more important and less important. Gary may well have the best explanation I've seen about what leftism finds important. Check it out.
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I don't necessarily think that people who disagree with me are corrupt or evil- unless they act on those beliefs they hold which say to them that it is OK to steal or initiate force. The aggression and/or theft are quite definitely evil- but it is the acts, not necessarily the beliefs that lead to those acts. Of course, without the beliefs, they probably wouldn't ever go through with the acts.
Let's see
Leftists oppose subordination? Then why do they reliably, almost unfailingly seek to increase government employees' power over me and my property?
They oppose exclusion? Then why do they favor affirmative action and other ethnically-tiered policies? Are white people not excluded from affirmative action?
They oppose deprivation but don't 'identify any particular remedy'. Great, then can I assume my free-market approach to solving deprivation of all forms meets with plenty of leftists' approval? No?
By this definition, almost all people we think of (and who think of themselves) as 'leftist' really cannot be. Meanwhile, I think I just might actually be a leftist myself.
Cute definition.
I think they always yap about "social justice", too.
What rwcg said.
I often find myself subordinate to a leftist with a metaphorical boot on my neck because I oppose gay marriage or some such, while I am excluded from commerce because a mob is protesting outside my business and driving away customers, and I get deprived of a whole 'lotta things while they pummel me mercilessly for thinking the wrong thoughts.
"Obey, and think the correct thoughts, and we will reduce your exclusion, deprivation, and subordination."
What if I think everyone is basically corrupt and evil. Do I get a pass then?
What if I think that most folks who disagree with me are simply dumb as a post, but happen to be lead by charismatic paragons of mendacity?
For the sake of argument we will define "dumb as a post" = "The government has magical economic and moral powers".
I think I can sum up most comments above with: while this sounds like a nice platform, it does not correlate with the actions of current mainstream political parties that call themselves "leftist".
(Nor does it correlate well with mainstream rightist political parties", so don't bother bringing that up anyone.)
Given that this definition does not line up with current practice, wouldn't it save a lot of confusion and argument if a different label was used? I vote for "Melisandra".
1)Leftists ignore the biggest lesson of the 20th century (governments are awful at almost everything) ...
2) ... because they want to fit in with their target crowd.
3)They also embrace leftism out of envy.
4)They ignore the obvious fact that their solutions are high-coercion ...
5) ... and convince themselves that the military and police (who they have issues with) are not the energy behind all of their plans.
So they may not be actively contemplating evil things (may not!) but their ideology is based on purposeful ignorance, brown-nosing, and bloody-mindededness.
Distinction without a difference.
But I'll take them over Jew-hating, clit-carving immigrants any day of the week.
"If you think that folks who disagree with you are, in general, corrupt or evil, this is a good sign that your brain has failed."
At first I thought this was your definition of leftism. One of the identifying features of the left throughout the world is their constant and noisy insistence that people who disagree with them are, indeed, corrupt and evil. Note that this is not symmetrical; the right think the left are stupid, while the left think the right are evil.
Given that that this is what leftist (but not rightist) politics consists of, would you care to update from "2/3 leftist"?
The Human Rights Commission of Canada is a perfect representation of Leftism. Here is Ezra Levant (compelled by the state to appear before a Leftist to explain his publishing of the Mohammed cartoons) goring the near-universal Leftist ox of "not hurting the feelings of minorities."
http://1389blog.com/2008/01/20/ezra-levant-takes-down-canadian-human-rights-commission/
RWCG,
1. Subordination. Because they think that the subordination that already exists is worse, and are trying to ameliorate that, albeit imperfectly.
2. Affirmative Action. They believe (correctly) that many minorities are systematically excluded (which is, itself, a top evil). And they don't see any other remedy.
3. Free Market (which I agree with). The claim is that it causes subordination. Which, remember, is one of the bad things.
You're adding your "what's good" to theirs.
RSF,
It is obviously true that (pre-1980? 1960?) blacks, gays, and women were systematically oppressed, and prevented from having many options not only legally, but also by the culture. How do you solve that, given that this state of affairs (according to leftists) is among the great evils.
You have to take it seriously as a problem before there's a conversation to be had.
HSA,
Yes.
DrPat,
Of the mainstream political parties, they seek political power, or lose. It's the nature of political parties, and of politicians, and monarchs, and etc. If you are in a political environment at all (All rulers and wannabes ever), then you play politics hard, or you lose.
That doesn't mean there isn't a coherent underlying philosophy that's as badly mauled as the republican vision of conservativism.
Salem,
There are philosophical positions and there are the behavior of the adherents. I try to keep them separate.
Ron Paul appears to have aggressively used race-baiting early in his career to attract votes. That makes his views on foreign policy no less good.
Many conservatives have crazy positions about sky-spirits that inform everything they do. Doesn't make the conservative credo (don't break the shit that works) any less wise.
I think 2/3 of Gary's leftism definition is fabulous.
Meh,
I think you failed the test.
Yes, 95% of leftists, and 95% of conservatives believe their belief for crowd-fitting reasons.
95% of leftists and 95% of conservatives don't give a shit about coercion.
and many/most conservatives and leftists embrace their positions for reasons having to do with opposing some folks who they want to have lower status.
Unfortunately, as someone on neither side, I find neither side particularly impressive on any of those counts...and the only way someone finds one side more impressive is if they pre-identify with that side.
Point 1 is well-said.
You give the Left a lot of credit for their good intentions. The road to a metaphysical Hell?
Aretae,
2. Affirmative Action. They believe (correctly) that many minorities are systematically excluded (which is, itself, a top evil). And they don't see any other remedy.
Blacks are no longer excluded relative to their average abilities. This used to be an HBD realist blog. Blacks are now over-included while non-Jewish whites are "systematically excluded." It's no longer the 60s, Aretae.
http://www.dailyprincetonian.com/2009/10/23/24251/
Accounting for population and IQ, blacks are better represented in the Ivies then are the Leftist bugaboos: non-Jewish white males.
Aretae,
>>>Yes, 95% of leftists, and 95% of conservatives believe their belief for crowd-fitting reasons.
>>>95% of leftists and 95% of conservatives don't give a shit about coercion.
>>>and many/most conservatives and leftists embrace their positions for reasons having to do with opposing some folks who they want to have lower status.
You need to change your statement to "If you DON'T think that 95% OF THE folks who AGREE with you are, in general, corrupt or evil, this is a good sign that your brain has failed."
Because people who are hideously conformist, don't give a shit about coercion, and choose their "values" based on harming people they don't like the look of are ... wait for it ... corrupt and evil.
OR (looked at another way) only anarchists like you are not corrupt and evil.
Congratulations, Saint Aretae!
Meh,
I think you meant to say:
"Blacks are no longer excluded relative to their IQ."
Not
"Blacks are no longer excluded relative to their abilities."
Since it's just an IQ thing, you'd probably, then, agree that firefighting, being as it's NOT a IQ-heavy job, probably shouldn't have an IQ-biased test as a major component of hiring or promotion?
Meh,
#2
You added an awful lot that I didn't say.
You were asserting things about leftists. I assert that almost everything you said about leftists is also true of rightists...and it was exclusively your bias calling it on leftists.
You then non-sequitur'ed into anarchist being saints. I don't know enough anarchists to make claims about them.
RSF,
Another post to answer.
Aretae,
>>>You added an awful lot that I didn't say.
>>>You were asserting things about leftists. I assert that almost everything you said about leftists is also true of rightists...and it was exclusively your bias calling it on leftists.
It's your arithmetic, dude. If (your words) 95% of cons and leftists exhibit the traits that I ascribed to leftists, then nearly everyone is evil and corrupt. Do you disagree that exhibiting these traits is evil and corrupt?
Because you seem to think that you're so different from others, I like to point out that you're exhibiting at least one big similarity: you claim that the people who disagree with you about (e.g. immigration) are "dog-kickers."
Aretae,
>>>Since it's just an IQ thing, you'd probably, then, agree that firefighting, being as it's NOT a IQ-heavy job, probably shouldn't have an IQ-biased test as a major component of hiring or promotion?
I'll pull a Yudkowsky. If I can address this specific issue to your satisfaction, will you admit that blacks are not being purposefully excluded? Or will you just throw out another issue that you haven't researched at all?
And keep in mind that you're talking about leading squads of men with specialized equipment into complex fires with unknown fuels, that those men could die if the leaders err, and that these leaders sometimes have to make high-stakes risk-reward calculations while unknown numbers of people may be dying within burning buildings.
Do you want fire suppression in your neighborhood lead by someone who can barely read? I know that you don't care if immigrants who excise girls' outer genitalia and rape small boys move into your neighborhood, but fire may be a different story.
I've talked to someone from an outside agency that develops tests for firefighters and her claim was that these tests were adopted and are carefully administered to STOP the exclusion that used to happen.
But your answer to the Yudkowsky question interests me most.
I find that piece overly complex. Leftism is three different things? No, leftism is one thing: egalitarianism.
(In that vein, it is amusing to see Chartier carving out unprincipled exceptions right and left. Or left and left, perhaps. We must never exclude people -- except for friendship, which turns out to be acceptable. Well, OK.)
How long does it take after the last mention of immigration before the comments will stay on topic?
Meh,
There's two sides of the problem here. And this is the interesting question.
1. Can someone, with ex-post-facto reasoning, come up with something plausible that would lead to the laws as they exist?
2. Given that conclusions are prior to reasoning, what is the likelihood that this ex-post-facto reasoning occurred before the law, rather than as a cover for the law.
2a. For instance, we know with near-certainty that the Davis-Bacon act, requiring federal funds to be spent on Union contracts was a specifically racist law... structured to avoid race issues, but intended explicitly to exclude blacks. Minimum wage laws, at their inception were also explicitly intended in this direction. We can ex-post facto discuss other plausible reasons why someone might have gotten there in the first place...but just because someone might in some fantasy world have arrived at a conclusion not motivated by racism doesn't mean that they did.
2b. I spent a reasonable quantity of time (some hundreds of hours) with a bunch of Chicago firefighters for something I was doing once. From the guys I know, it would be downright nuts to think that they aren't smart enough to exclude folks they don't want via an IQ test, or that they aren't clannish enough to do so on purpose.
Meh,
No, I don't think it (95%) makes them evil or corrupt.
I see these as amoral facts, akin to the fact that trees are green:
Human beings, like chimpanzees or wolves, are almost always groupist first, and moral 2nd.
Human beings have 6 moral axes that vary according to taste, and almost no one is anywhere near where I am on the liberty axis.
Liberty is overrated. At least the kind of liberty discussed here.
Aretae,
Agreed that laws have been made to exclude blacks. We're talking about now. Do you have any interest in convincing me that IQ doesn't matter much in complex, high speed, life or death situations? Because you don't seem interested in the concept, even though it's central to your premise.
Meh,
That's not a very interesting question. The question is whether marginal IQ matters more than marginal strength/speed/reaction time? What's the relationship between IQ and reaction time? Is it linear?
Do you have data on this?
My initial inclination is that once you can tie your shoes, then the physical strength, speed, courage, reliability, and reaction time far outweigh the IQ factors in firefighting. Smarts just isn't among the top 5 factors.
Aretae,
Except where leftists have sued fire depts to lower their physical standards to "stop excluding women" firefighters already have very high standards for strength and cardio.
Google "iq correlate reaction time"
Shoe-tying? Really?? What actual IQ are you saying would be a reasonable minimum for a leader of men entering burning buildings or performing as EMTs? Would somebody at shoe-tying level be smart enough to do what these guys are talking about?
http://prescottvalleytribune.com/main.asp?SectionID=74&SubSectionID=405&ArticleID=55108
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