of elephants and men, and scumbags

[juan]

On Thu, 22 Nov 2018 18:46:18 +0000 (UTC)
jim bell <jdb10987 at yahoo.com> wrote:


>  >   uh oh. So let's make clear what "the right" means. As Jim B. pointed out, the left/right classification comes from the french revolution. What needs to be added is that the people who sat on "the right" of the assembly were the conservatives/monarchists/theocrats or representatives of the 'ancien regime'.

> That explains how it applied in France, in 1795 or so.  


	I candidly admit I don't know the whole history of the use of those words but I never saw them used in political literature from the 19th century. If I had to guess, the terms became common in the 20th century.

	Regardless, the fact that monarchists sat on the right was abstracted and "the right" became a label for conservatives/monarchists. So it doesn't apply only to revolutionary france but to all conservatives/monarchists/theocrats.

	Now, if "the right' is the state-church-oligarchy, ancien regime, or powers that be, then people who oppose them must be on "the left", at least according to one simple interpretation. In the french case, the people who opposed the monarchy were a mix of socialists and fake libertarians, who wanted varying degrees of statism.

	Quite related fact : a few years before the french revolution there was a coup d'etat against the english monarchy in north america. This coup d'etat is known as the "american revolution" and was funded and supported by the french monarchy. Furthermore, more than a few particular fake libertarians(jefferson and co.) were involved in both the french and american 'revolutions'.

	So in the english colonies a bunch of criminals overthrew the english monarchy (so they were left wingers) with help from the french monarchy and founded a slave empire. So they were far right wingers...


	Coincidentally I wonder if children in the USA learn about the fact that the american coup d'etat was funded by the french. I further wonder if children in public schools are informed of the fact that public 'education' is socialism and political brainwashing.



> 
> 
>  >   Now, key features of fascism are close cooperation between the 'private' sector and government and nationalism-militarism, also known as imperialism. Fascists usualy believe that they are god's chosen master race and that they have a Manifest Destiny. In other words the old mercantilists from the british empire and modern day fascists like the americunts are both 'right wingers'. And actually modern day corporatists-imperialists  are simply the continuantion of 18th century imperialists. 


> I won't argue with this, now, except to point out that the so-understood "leftist" dictatorships of the 20th century (usually based on Communism) tended to have analogous beliefs.  Not identical, of course, but analogous.  For example, Juan says:
> "Fascists usualy believe that they are god's chosen master race and that they have a Manifest Destiny."
> My response is that "race" is fairly irrelevant:  We can't choose our race.  It's not a "variable", and certainly not in the short-term.  One could argue, "What does it matter if one person believes, and even declares, that his race is superior?  Unless he tries to act on this belief in a hostile or otherwise violent way, it is functionally irrelevant".


	Agreed, if a some people are racists and they just talk about it, then it's mostly irrelevant. 

	But when lots of people are racists, like say, the germans, the jews, the americans, and similar imperialist assholes are, then racism becomes an important anti-libertarian factor.


	In the case of americans, so called 'liberals' actually don't give a fuck about racism OR are racists themselves. They pose as being against racism only for war propaganda purposes. Notice that the 'liberals' where the assholes promoting eugenics at the beginning of the 20th century. OOPS -they did that before hitler and co go figure...



>   Yet, you will notice today that most of the American Left obsesses about "Nazis"  (seemingly their chosen label for anyone who they have come to dislike) who, they claim, believe themselves to be superior.  My response is:  "Does it really matter what THEY believe about themselves?  Is it relevant?  Is it significant?  


	Of course racism is significant in the US.



> As for "Manifest Destiny":   Communists had the idea that their system would inexorably spread around the world, destroying all other forms of government.  (So, that is indeed akin to a "Manifest Destiny".)   


	Yes, that's my point. Commies and american fascists are close cousins. And I'd put the commies on the left, and the americans who think they have a 'manifest destiny' on the right. 


  
> Does anyone remember the stories about the Soviet Union, with its "5-year plans"?   Shoe factories, for instance, were ordered by "the plan" to produce a certain number (at least) of millions of pairs of shoes.  Well, they did so, but they tended to be of a small number of styles that many people didn't want! 


	yeah, serfs and wage slaves are more easily controlled if they are 'free' to choose the color of their shoes. That may sounds like sarcasm but it's literally true. And it's the reason why fascism is marginally more 'efficient' than communism. 


>  Sure, they met 'the plan', but they didn't meet the wants and needs of the public.   Walk into any shoe store today, in America, and there are many hundreds of styles, multiplied by dozens of sizes.  A centrally-planned system never could accomplish this.  


	but centrally planned, fake free markets do accomplish that, as seen in 'the west'.



> 
>     China killed perhaps 20 million people in the "Great Leap Forward",

	I don't think there's any source for that number except right wing propaganda =) 

	While we are at it, do you know how many millions were enslaved or murderer by the american government and its supporters? Slavery lasted for 100 years in the US so you can sum up the number of all the slaves that lived in the US, then add the number all people murderer by the US military since 1776. Don't forget to include the terror bombing of germany and japan. Vietnam, korea, etc.

	I would be interested to know what that figure amounts to...


> a plan which no doubt was intended to bring the prosperity that Mao saw in Western nations.  Ironically, now China is achieving prosperity, but it is doing so by employing a (not-perfect) pseudo-'free market' which it had not previously attempted. 


	exactly the same thing western mercantilists always used. A fake 'free' market. 



>  Curiously, Russia has remained economically stuck, for reasons I suppose economists and technologists can explain.  
> 
>     
>  >   So the question for Jim Bell remains. What political doctrines are 'right wing'?
> 
> First, sorry for taking so long to respond to this.


	No problem. There's been a 30% automatic reduction on your wages =P


> Also, I did not mean to suggest that 'all extremist governments are left-wing', although it might have seemed that I intended that.Rather, take a look at the Nolan Chart as I usually think of it:   A diamond-shape (a square rotated by 45 degrees.)   https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nolan_Chart
> At the top is "100/100", complete freedom.  (Libertarian).  The left vertex is 100/0, complete social freedom but zero economic freedom.  (I do not know if there is a convention as to which number goes first, "social freedom" or "economic freedom").  The right vertex is 0/100, zero social freedom but full economic freedom. 


	Yes but as I said in a previous message to Steve K. I don't think that the left stands for personal freedom and the right for economic freedom. Some of the left's and right's talking points might seem to suggest that but it's just lip service and political propaganda.

	So the nolan chart's assumptions about left and right are flawed.


> The vertex on the bottom is 0/0, no social freedom and no economic freedom.
> One of the first things I noticed about the Nolan Chart is that it seemed to explain why 'dictatorships of the left' and 'dictatorships on the right' appeared so similar. 

	Yeah, the chart does make some sense in that regard - but technically it puts full  dictatorship on the center...so it doesn't make complete sense either. 


>(at that time, about 1980, I was not aware that there was a challenge to the idea of "fascism" as being "right-wing").
>  For example, you can imagine that as most freedoms (both social and economic) go away, the position on the Nolan Chart begins to approach the bottom-most vertex, 0/0.   Thus, as you get close to that point, say a strong "leftist" dictatorship at, say, 10/0, or a strong "rightist" dictatorship at 0/10, you see that these points are actually quite close to each other.  


	Yes, so that illustrates the point that the left and the right are close cousins. But in the nolan chart they would appear in the center (and the center usually stand for moderation...)



> This led me to the conclusion that in the limited area of dictatorships, there really isn't much difference between "left" and "right".  These labels become fairly irrelevant. 

	Yes the labels are irrelevant in one sense and not just in the case of complete dictatorships. You can look at a lot of issues where there's no meaningful distinction between left and right 'opinions'. BUT, at the same time, partisans on both camps pretend that they are radically different. 


> Nevertheless today, people can get into fierce arguments as to whether "fascism" is "left-wing" or "right-wing".   Does it really matter?   


	It depends =P - I think it does matter when talking to people who use the left/right classification. Like say, trump supporter, white supremacists and fascist James Donald who clearly thinks he's "on the right' and a "good guy'.

	Also I think It's very important to trace the pedigree of anti libertarian imperialists, from the time when they were judeo-christian monarchists, to the time when they were 'national socialists' or when jefferson and washington were expanding their slave empire and when americans blow brown children up for the glory and profits of goldman sachs. 


	So....I don't think you actually answered my question? =) 

	If you put the commies and fascists on the left, then who is on the right? Ayn rand, the champion of....american fascism? 
	


> True, we are today conditioned to accept the idea that "fascism" is "right-wing".

	I am not 'conditioned' to do that. I have a good argument to justify that position. And as a libertarian I want nothing to do with fake libertarians or right wingers so I'm interested in showing to them that they are just a brand of fascist.


>  But I think a study of the relevant history shows that these labels are virtually meaningless in the extreme case of a dictatorship. 

	But they do matter because lefties say they are the good guys and so do right wingers. Now, when they get to implement their systems what we have is a dictatorship. But it's important to keep in mind that those dictatorships are the result of left of right wing 'philosophy'.



> Would you have preferred living in Nazi Germany, as opposed to Stalinist Russia?


	What about being burnt to death in hiroshima, dresden, or vietnam? 




>                 Jim Bell 
>   
>