[POLITICS] Two Mass Shootings in 15 Hours, and O'Rourke on Trump
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No, it's having goals that are larger than what might be achieved in the short term. Plans that have multiple steps.tstorm823 said:
You're specifically avoiding any consideration of what constitutes progress vs. regress, insisting instead that any movement in any direction is progress by definition. That is very clearly morally relativist. I haven't prescribed any one answer that transcends time and place; I've outlined what progress looks like in extremely general-- which is to say moral-- terms. So long as humans have a taste for liberty and creativity, liberation from structures of oppression will be considered progress by those who are liberated.tstorm823 said:
As if the two are mutually exclusive. As if communism is just one thing. As if no liberation from traditional authoritarian hierarchies has occurred under capitalism. It is certainly reasonable to say that one needs a form of communism to go all the way on that-- because capitalism itself is a structure of oppression-- but progress has occurred in disrupting and destroying especially traditional authoritarian hierarchies under capitalism. For example, patriarchy [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Timeline_of_women%27s_legal_rights_(other_than_voting)_in_the_20th_century]. Under capitalism, societies have gone a long way toward liberating women from a subservient position in the home into a subservient position at work just like the men. That doesn't mean we're done, it just means that progress has been made. And peeling back that progress would be regress, not more progress.tstorm823 said:
No, no it isn't. That is precisely what Progressivism isn't. If you have a grand vision of what the world should be in the end, you aren't a progressive, you're whatever the name of your vision is. Nearly every definition of progressivism you'll find uses the word "reform", because they idea is to hammer out flaws and add improvements to current practices, perpetually building on top of what came before. If you want to eliminate the society we have, you're not reforming it. If you have a utopia you think you're working towards, then eventually you'd intend to halt progress. That's not progressivism.Seanchaidh said:
I'm not insisting that any movement in any direction is progress. Moving backwards isn't progress. Sometimes forward thinking changes aren't progress, because they fail at their intended goal. But progressivism is the intention, not the outcome. Prohibition wasn't progress, it didn't make society better and ultimately got reversed, but it was progressive because it had that intention of reforming society into something better. I'm not defining progress because identifying progress requires hindsight. I'm not defining progress because I don't have a crystal ball to tell me what changes are going to be great and what will backfire. I certainly have opinions on what is what and will argue for my own. Just because someone has an idea of how to change society to improve the human experience doesn't mean they've got good ideas. But it would be repugnantly condescending for me to suggest that people who want to change things in ways I disagree with aren't progressive.
For example, take abortion. The pro-life position is progressive, it's advocating new social reform. This nation without voluntary abortion has never existed, I think it would be better if it did, and science and technology are taking us that direction whether people like implementing policy or not. When we reach the point where we can remove a fetus without it dying, abortion as we know it now is going to be treated as infanticide by everyone, guaranteed. I think leaning toward a future without legal voluntary abortion is progress and the liberal position on allowing more abortion is actually regress. But I recognize that people advocating for expanded access to abortion are also trying to make society better. I think that's wrong and awful and genuinely backwards, but it's not because people are trying to be wrong and awful and genuinely backwards. Someone who wants to reform society into something better doesn't cease to have progressive motivations just because they suck at it.
Firstly. nobody needs communism for anything, it's a useless delusional ideology.
Secondly, you're judging what is progress based on your hyper-narrow communist framework. Implementing policy changes to combat climate change is progressive. I don't think it's possible to strain logic so far as to characterize implementing renewable energy as liberation from oppression. If you'd like to justify why the government encouraging businesses to use windmills instead of coal plants is either a) not progressive or b) liberating people from authoritarian hierarchies and systems of oppression, I would be perfectly content to let whatever you say stand and let others judge for themselves how warped your concept of progressivism is.
No, it isn't. If you have an ideology that you wish to impose on society, that is what you are. Liberalism has distinct values, those who want to build the government in pursuit of those values is a liberal. Communism has distinct goals, those who want to reach those goals are communists. These things are based on set ideologies that do not change over time. Conservatism and progressivism are not-ideological philosophies, they are pragmatic in nature. Most people in America are arguing on this axis, where policy decisions are not determined based on ideological values but rather based on efficacy.Seanchaidh said:
To bring it back to the subject of mass shootings, main stream arguments about gun control are done on this conservative vs progressive axis. It's a group of people trying to change things to end atrocities vs a group of people who think that change will make more atrocities. Sure, there are some who think guns are inherently immoral, and some who think gun control is inherently immoral, but the vast majority of people are just arguing about what they think works best.
You had to cut away half the sentence to even pretend I'm not exactly right.Seanchaidh said:
Edit to be specific: something like liberalism or communism may manifest itself differently in different times and places, but they all share a foundation or they wouldn't share a name. Liberalism roots itself in liberty, equality, justice, and the consent of the population to the actions of the government. There are many interpretations of what those mean and how to enact them, but anything that doesn't value those things, isn't liberalism. Communism has the end goal of a society without class division. If a viewpoint advocates for class divisions, its not communism. There's a foundation.
Progressivism and conservatism don't have that. Go ahead, try and name any single value that would be considered conservative in every place and every time.
Oh, that is most certainly obvious. But very few people in either country would look at a practice that has almost exclusively been practised in modern times by highly conservative, traditionalist religious institutions such as conversion therapy and call that "progressive".tstorm823 said:
I've honestly never encountered anybody in my life who still holds this early-20th-century fringe definition of "progressive". In any country I've been to, or during my years studying political history. If I described it to somebody even vaguely politically-minded, I think they'd probably laugh.
So... those are our two choices? Authoritarian hierarchy or communism? To be clear: there's no other alternative to authoritarian hierarchy?
Sounds fine to me!Silvanus said:
No, that's just where I decided to cut it.tstorm823 said:
Respect for authority.tstorm823 said:
From Texas representative Matt Schaefer: "As an elected official with a vote in Austin, let me tell you what I am NOT going to do. I am NOT going to use the evil acts of a handful of people to diminish the God-given rights of my fellow Texans. Period. None of these so-called gun-control solutions will work to stop a person with evil intent. What can we do? YES to praying for victims. YES to praying for protection. YES to praying that God would transform the hearts of people with evil intent."
People have been praying for thousands of years. I bet those shooting victims were praying to live. Doesn't seem like anyone's there to answer those prayers. But hey, when you'd rather believe in an imaginary daddy figure in the sky than actually DO something about people being murdered....
People have been praying for thousands of years. I bet those shooting victims were praying to live. Doesn't seem like anyone's there to answer those prayers. But hey, when you'd rather believe in an imaginary daddy figure in the sky than actually DO something about people being murdered....
It's circa-2009 Glenn Beck boomer/FNC geezer nonsense. Flip the script by using the terms "liberal" and "progressive" in such an imprecise, slapdash, uncritical, and insensible manner, that entirely eliminates the distinction between social theory, economic theory, and political movement. Take the amorphous mass of definitional absence that results, cherry pick out working definitions that lionize oneself and demonize others, then use those definitions as glued together by a thin veneer of raw bullshit anyone with an iota of real education can see straight through.Silvanus said:
"I'm the real liberal, them thar commie-socio-fascists are nothin' but a pack of progressive regressive socialisms!" basically equates to:
1. I consider myself a "free market" capitalist, but like to pretend the pedigree of my beliefs go back to Adam Smith. Just never mind the fact Smith was writing in critique of mercantilism in the 18th Century, no nation on Earth has practiced classical liberalism since the Great Depression (and in fact, the attempt to return to a classically liberal international political economy caused the Depression), what I'm really preaching but am too ignorant to realize is actually corporatist neoliberalism since not even Smith writing 250 years ago with this myopic and catastrophically ignorant.
2. This is proven by the fact I demonstrate no working knowledge of the difference between "capital-L" and "little-L" liberalism, and act as if they are synonymous to claim a position on the political spectrum I actually don't occupy, in order to portray the political spectrum further right than it actually is.
3. Anyone I don't agree with is a progressive. Except, as befitting my libertarian capitalist ideology, I'm going to ignore the difference between progressivism as social theory and progressivism as political movement, and smear progressivism as social theory by association to Progressive political policy positions I personally disagree with. Then pretend it's "socialism by any other name".
2. This is proven by the fact I demonstrate no working knowledge of the difference between "capital-L" and "little-L" liberalism, and act as if they are synonymous to claim a position on the political spectrum I actually don't occupy, in order to portray the political spectrum further right than it actually is.
3. Anyone I don't agree with is a progressive. Except, as befitting my libertarian capitalist ideology, I'm going to ignore the difference between progressivism as social theory and progressivism as political movement, and smear progressivism as social theory by association to Progressive political policy positions I personally disagree with. Then pretend it's "socialism by any other name".
It's where sophistry meets gaslighting, kind of like 1984 as written by elementary school students.
I think the explanation for most of this is that you aren't really reading what I'm writing. I'm not saying conversion therapy is progressive. I'm saying it was 100 years ago. By now, it's been tried and failed and responsible for people's suffering. But when it was psychologists developing the idea, they obviously lacked the hindsight we have. If you think I'm trying to say that people attempting conversion therapy now are progressive now, you misunderstand. It was pioneered by progressive scientists and picked up by theocrats.Silvanus said:
No, those are not the only two choices. I'm not saying communism is the only alternative to authoritarian hierarchy, seanchaidh thinks that. I didn't say those words are inherently communism, I said that a specific user was talking about communism. And then when you questioned it, I clarified that when specifically seanchaidh says things like that, it's intended to describe communism. Hopefully the affirmative reaction from that avowed communist will be enough to assure you that it was factually about communism when said communist started listing ideas contained in communism as the definition of progress.
Very not true. American conservatism is overflowing with distrust of government activism. A conservative in a lawless state resists instituting authority.Seanchaidh said:
Which is why they tend to make excuses for police killings of unarmed people and concentration camps, sure.tstorm823 said:
A conservative in a lawless state would want to embrace and formalize existing informal hierarchies; gangster families would become noble houses and so on.tstorm823 said:
I don't know man, gun ownership is defended and safeguarded with a zeal that is usually reserved for religion. One might even say that for all intents and purposes, the gun IS god.Kwak said:
Hence the saying "God helps those who help themselves": get off your arse and sort your own shit out, don't wait for God to fix it for you.The Rogue Wolf said:
Government activism is not the same thing as "authority". Authority also requires legitimacy, and a conservative may view the government, or areas of government activity, as illegitimate, and thus not see it as a valid source of authority.tstorm823 said:
A major plank of conservative thought throughout centuries is to believe that society is naturally hierarchical (the more talented individual should earn more, for instance, or that the king rules by divine mandate), and that the hierarchy is desirable for society. Such a society depends on order and authority, and discipline and obedience to authority is thus desirable. One thing that can be observed very frequently in conservatives, even small government, is much higher levels of respect for the police and military: both, of course, institutions heavily representing authority, hierarchy and order.
A small government conservative may see hierarchy in quite economic terms: that's your business you own to do with as you please, your workers jump as high as you tell them to, your right to belch out pollution like crazy, and it's nobody's business to interfere. A less small government conservative may invest far more in government authority (be it monarchy, dictatorship, democracy etc.) or perhaps other institutions representing social order and hierarchy (e.g. frequently the church.)