[POLITICS] Right-Wing Hypocrisy

[Saelune]

So like, people say the American parties flipped, but did they really, or did the Democrats not change all the much from a centre right party and still, while the Republicans went from a left wing party to a far right one?

 

[tstorm823]

Along with a shift in what is considered left and right due to social norms, that's not a bad way of looking at it.

It's a terrible way of looking at it. These words have meaning, and can be traced to their roots. The assembly during the French Revolution split itself left and right, the right side supporting some amount of monarchical power and left rejecting that. Thus, left and right became those for democracy against those for hierarchy. The two major American parties carry this legacy right in their names: Democrats, for majority rule, want to elect officials to enact the will of the people. Republicans, for leadership, want officials to act in the interests of the people with their own wisdom. That is the difference between democracy and republic after all.

That the parties "switched" in any way is because Democrats have moved wildly on issues, but the truth is the core principles of the Democratic party have remained the same: enact the will of the people. The Democratic Party swings on policies swiftly with the era because public opinion changes. The Republican Party has fixed principles, the principles on which America was founded, that it governs by even when it isn't popular to do so, believing that to be in the best interest of the people whether or not the people are asking for it. But that is the essence of left vs right, democracy vs hierarchy. Democrats have been the left as long as Republicans were the right, just as Democratic-Republicans (the Democrats before name change) were the left when the Federalists were the right.

 

[Eacaraxe_v1legacy]

The Republican party was always right wing. The Democratic party was always left wing.

Strom Thurmond was a left-winger?

 

[PsychedelicDiamond]

So like, people say the American parties flipped, but did they really, or did the Democrats not change all the much from a centre right party and still, while the Republicans went from a left wing party to a far right one?

Seeing how the Democratic Party used to be in favour of slavery I think we can assume that it's moved to the left since then.

 

[Eacaraxe_v1legacy]

So like, people say the American parties flipped, but did they really, or did the Democrats not change all the much from a centre right party and still, while the Republicans went from a left wing party to a far right one?

Pretty much everything before the rise of the New Deal coalition is irrelevant to the conversation, but conservative Republicans weren't too happy with Eisenhower being a stealth centrist, and Nixon losing to Kennedy. Barry Goldwater and William Buckley decided to "correct" the issue by running moderate ("Rockefeller") Republicans out of the party, because Jesus and Communism, and courted pissed-off Southern Democrats to pick up the slack. That'd come to fruition in '68 when Nixon employed the Southern Strategy to win the Presidency.

Rockefeller Republicans were kind of a mixed bag. In favor of a moderate safety net and unionization out of economic expedience, but pro-deregulation and pro-business. Generally anti-government spending, but pro-taxation to ensure balanced budgets. Socially liberal (for their time), but not anything one could seriously call progressive. Best way to explain them is "Northern assholes".

Basically, Democrats and Republicans traded demographics they no longer wanted for what they did. Democrats got the Northern corporatist assholes, Republicans got the Southern racist assholes. The traded demographics would go on to take over the party.

 

[tstorm823]

Strom Thurmond was a left-winger?

Yes. Segregation was popular.

To be specific, Southern Democrats were pro-segregation because the south as a whole was pro-segregation. When the south as a whole turned against segregation, the vast majority of Democratic politicians turned against it following public opinion. Strom Thurmond himself was not a typical Democratic politician, he was actually a ideological segregationist, a coincidental ally of the left in that era, not particularly left himself. But he was a member of the left-wing party.

 

[Eacaraxe_v1legacy]

To be specific, Southern Democrats were pro-segregation because the south as a whole was pro-segregation. When the south as a whole turned against segregation, the vast majority of Democratic politicians turned against it following public opinion. Strom Thurmond himself was not a typical Democratic politician, he was actually a ideological segregationist, a coincidental ally of the left in that era, not particularly left himself. But he was a member of the left-wing party.

Populism-elitism is a separate axis from left-right. Just as authoritarianism-libertarianism and progressivism-conservatism are other, separate and distinct axes. One of the biggest failures in American politics is muddying the waters and trying to conflate different ideological axes, so that everything fits into a neat little single-axis paradigm which doesn't work. Most of the time, it's done with ulterior motives -- idealizing one ideology while demonizing others.

 

[Trunkage]

So like, people say the American parties flipped, but did they really, or did the Democrats not change all the much from a centre right party and still, while the Republicans went from a left wing party to a far right one?

Lincoln was a Free Soiler. He wanted slavery diminished so that white settlers without slaves could earn more of a living. He also didn't ban slavery in areas he could have during the war, making his emancipation proclamation pretty pointless. Free Soilers had set up Liberia in the 1850s to send African Americans back, but that experiment turned out to be... problematic.

Edit: They have swapped, Dems used to be Far-Right, and Republicans Centre-Right. And now Dems are more in the centre.

Populism-elitism is a separate axis from left-right. Just as authoritarianism-libertarianism and progressivism-conservatism are other, separate and distinct axes. One of the biggest failures in American politics is muddying the waters and trying to conflate different ideological axes, so that everything fits into a neat little single-axis paradigm which doesn't work. Most of the time, it's done with ulterior motives -- idealizing one ideology while demonizing others.

I would not put Libertarian on the opposite axis of authoritarianism. Libertarians tend to like Capitalism and haven't figured out that people don't like it forced on them, whether it be workers, CEOs, producers or consumers. And I really going to emphasis that Libertarians forced it on people, because none of us asked for Capitalism. It was put on us and we either had to like it or complain about it. And they keep saying its about "Freedom." Unironically.

Just because your economic model is more free than others, does not make it about freedom.

 

[Agema]

It's a terrible way of looking at it. These words have meaning, and can be traced to their roots. The assembly during the French Revolution split itself left and right, the right side supporting some amount of monarchical power and left rejecting that. Thus, left and right became those for democracy against those for hierarchy.

I think a more accurate way of putting it is that the left has traditionally stood for egalitarianism (not necessarily democracy) and the right for social hierarchy. On a global scale left has, after all, produced some impressively politically hierachical regimes.

After that, right-wing parties are normally also more conservative and individualist than left-wing parties, although there are exceptions.

 

[tstorm823]

I think a more accurate way of putting it is that the left has traditionally stood for egalitarianism (not necessarily democracy) and the right for social hierarchy. On a global scale left has, after all, produced some impressively politically hierachical regimes.

After that, right-wing parties are normally also more conservative and individualist than left-wing parties, although there are exceptions.

I agree it gets kind of muddly, but the point is what people view the government as and what the purpose of government should be. Regardless of whether the government is a million person pyramid with a dictator on top or a 5 person counsel, the left-wing view is that the government is collective action of the people and must reflect the will of the people, the right-wing view is that the government is a paternal entity meant to protect the people. This subtle distinction is why arguments like "taxation is theft" fall flat on the left, because the government taxes the people and is the people and you can't steal from yourself. And also why the right acts like a grounded teenager when the government makes them do something (particularly something they think doesn't benefit them), because they view the government as a separate entity from themselves.

There's nothing contradictory about someone desiring social egalitarianism but deferring to decisions of individual leaders to establish such a society. Nor is there anything contradictory about thinking of government as an extension of a people even while people demand social hierarchy.

 

[DarthCoercis]

Ya know, I'd never have guessed it, but when you ignore the "saelune" parts of a saelune thread, there's usually an informative and interesting discussion happening.

 

[Eacaraxe_v1legacy]

I would not put Libertarian on the opposite axis of authoritarianism. Libertarians tend to like Capitalism and haven't figured out that people don't like it forced on them, whether it be workers, CEOs, producers or consumers...

Now you're starting to go into the economic versus civil libertarian divide. Sure, American libertarianism is decidedly on the economic side of that divide, as influenced by Spencer and Nozick they are. However, one must be careful to not dismiss the existence of civil libertarianism as American pundits on left and right are wont to do -- especially as one could very easily make the argument civil libertarianism is the original, "true" form, and economic libertarianism is a Gilded Age corruption to justify corporatism.

Either way, civil and economic libertarianism are both libertarian ideologies. That one branch focuses on economic rights, does not mean it ceases to be a libertarian theory. This is analogous to the group-individual rights divide on either left or right -- in the left's case, individual versus identity, and in the right's, individual versus corporate.

And, that aside, all you're ultimately arguing is the iron law of oligarchy applies to libertarianism as a political or economic theory. Which is true of all applicable theories and ideologies.

 

[Terminal Blue]

I would not put Libertarian on the opposite axis of authoritarianism. Libertarians tend to like Capitalism and haven't figured out that people don't like it forced on them, whether it be workers, CEOs, producers or consumers.

Well, I think that's because a bunch of assholes stole the term Libetarian because they wanted to be cool conservatives who smoke weed.

"Libetarian socialism" is a whole thing, for example.

 

[Eacaraxe_v1legacy]

"Libetarian socialism" is a whole thing, for example.

Left-wing. That's literally just being left-wing. That is to say, once you cut the shit and look at the theories at play, as opposed to propaganda and pundits' incessant stream of verbal diarrhea.

Government as a guarantor of civil liberties, employing mixed economic policies to maximize equality.

 

[TheIronRuler]

"Libetarian socialism" is a whole thing, for example.

Left-wing. That's literally just being left-wing. That is to say, once you cut the shit and look at the theories at play, as opposed to propaganda and pundits' incessant stream of verbal diarrhea.

Government as a guarantor of civil liberties, employing mixed economic policies to maximize equality.

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I think those guys don't want a government to do that, and instead opt out of a government so they could have a decentralized structure.

 

[Eacaraxe_v1legacy]

I think those guys don't want a government to do that, and instead opt out of a government so they could have a decentralized structure.

That's anarcho-syndicalism. [Or, as I like to call it, "naive stupidity".]

 

[TheIronRuler]

I think those guys don't want a government to do that, and instead opt out of a government so they could have a decentralized structure.

That's anarcho-syndicalism. [Or, as I like to call it, "naive stupidity".]

.
I like to call them one of my favorite Kaiserreich mod factions.

A cursory glance at the wiki told me otherwise. I'll give it a longer read... I do think some libertarians would support having no central government authority, though... but that's besides the point.

 

[Eacaraxe_v1legacy]

A cursory glance at the wiki told me otherwise. I'll give it a longer read... I do think some libertarians would support having no central government authority, though... but that's besides the point.

Never, ever use Wikipedia for information on politics or political theories. You can use it for a list of sources to read if you wish, but never use it as a source in and of itself.

Probably the best, most accessible, online source for political theory is the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy [https://plato.stanford.edu/index.html]. Editorial board made up of experts, the composition of which is publicly available. Authors are vetted by the editorial board, entries are subject to editorial review before publication, authorship is publicly available, and citations and sources must stand up to academic rigor.

 

[tstorm823]

Never, ever use Wikipedia for information on politics or political theories. You can use it for a list of sources to read if you wish, but never use it as a source in and of itself.

Probably the best, most accessible, online source for political theory is the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy [https://plato.stanford.edu/index.html]. Editorial board made up of experts, the composition of which is publicly available. Authors are vetted by the editorial board, entries are subject to editorial review before publication, authorship is publicly available, and citations and sources must stand up to academic rigor.

But if I don't use Wikipedia, how would I get easily hyperlinked to "Anarcha-feminism"? That 3rd "A" is an impressive level of dedication.

 

[Trunkage]

I think those guys don't want a government to do that, and instead opt out of a government so they could have a decentralized structure.

That's anarcho-syndicalism. [Or, as I like to call it, "naive stupidity".]

Hey, that's what I call Capitalism. And Communism. Stop taking my ideas.