Political Discussion Thread (With Rules)

[TrickstaPriest]

53 minutes ago, Ragitsu said:

Overreaction is the least favored of all parents; if their protestations are challenged by eventual mundanity, they are deemed "alarmist" and "paranoid". If, on the other hand, their protestations ward off catastrophe long before it has a chance of being spotted, they are deemed "alarmist" and "paranoid".

 

Yes.  Mostly, I wanted to remind people and myself that having an 'independent standard' of what you should be concerned by is very important, and that I was actively rewriting my standard and my interpretation of events until I sat down and compared it against that standard.

[Badger]

Oh, I forgot with all the topics going on:

 

with communism, I am not sure if half of self-proclaimed Communists know what the hell communism is. 

[L. Marcus]

Ours have workshops and night classes.

[Badger]

Heh, well, I probably should amend that self-proclaimed communists in America, when I seriously think about it.  (although the American version, I might should up the percentage drastically, too)

[Ragitsu]

3 hours ago, dmjalund said:

the "Other" stimulus package

 

Amygdala stimulation, more like it.

[assault]

2 hours ago, Badger said:

Oh, I forgot with all the topics going on:

 

with communism, I am not sure if half of self-proclaimed Communists know what the hell communism is. 

 

You're not wrong there.

In the US, especially, but not exclusively, it's horribly confused/tangled up with liberalism. The college/academic types are particularly messed up that way.

 

All those shouty idiots? In the vast majority of cases, liberals working out their teenage angst, or trying to establish/maintain their professional credibility.

 

And then there are all the people who still think they are opposing Dubya Bush, who have tied themselves to Putin. Basically, Stalinism has made a comeback in a particularly idiotic form.

 

Or, and a Marx quote is entirely relevant here:

"Hegel remarks somewhere that all great world-historic facts and personages appear, so to speak, twice. He forgot to add: the first time as tragedy, the second time as farce."

[Dr. MID-Nite]

I don't want Communism. I want Democratic Socialism on par with the majority of the First World. 

[Old Man]

Communist. 

[dmjalund]

1 hour ago, Dr. MID-Nite said:

I don't want Communism. I want Democratic Socialism on par with the majority of the First World. 

What the world has is Social Democracy, there is a significant difference

[assault]

All the social democratic reforms have been under sustained attack for the last 40 years. When they haven't been simply reversed, they have been cut back, privatized and so on. There's a good chance they will come under further attack once the dust settles, justified by the economic cost of the current crisis.

 

So it's quite likely that the US could converge with us in the next decade or so. You might get something a bit better than you have, while we will have something much worse.

 

The other thing with social democratic reforms is that they aren't just handed out. They need to be fought for. That's one of the reasons why they can be reversed.

And, if I was to be honest, it requires aiming for more radical goals than what you are actually going to get. The result is always a compromise, aimed at pulling support away from the "more radical goals" and towards supporting people like the Clinton/Obama/Biden Democrats. If you support them in the first place, you get (next to) nothing.

[Ragitsu]

Obama ran on "change"; Biden is partly running on "no change". If you note the type of people that he was pitching this inspiring message to, you will realize that he is most probably not going to be a firebrand when it comes to progressive economic policy.

[Hugh Neilson]

I'm not a political scientist, so if one wants to correct me, feel free, however I do not believe the world has ever had a true communist regime as envisioned by Marx.  His vision saw a nation move from monarchy to capitalism and then to communism.  Russia was not on his radar - they were a monarchy and had not transitioned to capitalism.  The Russian Revolution used his buzzwords, not his maxims.

 

To me, the problem with his vision is that it requires human beings to place the welfare of their fellow human beings equal to, or even greater than, their own.  The basic human trait of selfishness prevents the system from working.  Much like economic theory breaks down under the practical reality that "perfect competition" exists in few if any industries.

[Ragitsu]

10 minutes ago, Hugh Neilson said:

 The basic human trait of selfishness prevents the system from working.

 

Genetic engineering might grease those wheels, but that's a Pandora's box jam-packed with cans of worms.

[assault]

2 hours ago, Hugh Neilson said:

I'm not a political scientist, so if one wants to correct me, feel free, however I do not believe the world has ever had a true communist regime as envisioned by Marx.  His vision saw a nation move from monarchy to capitalism and then to communism.  Russia was not on his radar - they were a monarchy and had not transitioned to capitalism.  The Russian Revolution used his buzzwords, not his maxims.

 

To me, the problem with his vision is that it requires human beings to place the welfare of their fellow human beings equal to, or even greater than, their own.  The basic human trait of selfishness prevents the system from working.  Much like economic theory breaks down under the practical reality that "perfect competition" exists in few if any industries.

 

Ah, yes, the good old "human nature" argument. As insightful and obvious as the Divine Right of Kings.

 

As far as the Russian Revolution went - it's best to think of it as a bet, not as a thing in itself.

 

The bet was that it would help trigger European wide revolution - specifically in Germany. You know what? It kind of worked. There was a German Revolution of sorts - but it failed, the Weimar Republic was established as a result, and of course we all know what happened afterwards.

 

What wasn't intended was for the "Russian Revolution" to remain Russian. Once it was contained, however, they had to make do with what they had - and that wasn't enough. It still didn't have to end up with Stalinism, but it was always going to be in a permanent state of siege, with nasty consequences. And Stalinism was what actually happened, becoming for decades the "official" variety of "communism", including in the eyes of its enemies.

What would, for example, an "American Revolution" look like? Well, obviously there's already been one, and two if you count the Civil War, so we can call it the Third American Revolution.

 

The most obvious point that it would be American. Not Russian, not German, not Australian, Swedish or whatever. And not in 1917, but in 20-something - a whole different context.

 

As far as what Marx intended, though - he (and Engels) envisaged a system with functioning democratic institutions. The closest example he was able to point to was the Paris Commune in 1870-71. Prior to Stalinism, that was the model - how Communism was supposed to work - through popular assemblies, with democratic elections, the ability to recall representatives and the full nine yards. An improvement on existing democratic systems, not a step back from them.

 

In fact, the Soviets in the Soviet Union were meant to play this role, but they were gutted during the Civil War and never regained their proper role. It's hard for democratic institutions to function during war, epidemics and famine.

 

But that was situational, not inherent, and irrelevant to the future.

 

To repeat myself: "An improvement on existing democratic systems, not a step back from them." That's the future, and "human nature" is not an argument against it.

 

But all this stuff is a side track.

[Ragitsu]

"Star Trek" is often labeled as communist, but...given that post-scarcity is the norm in each series, I can't see that definition fully applying to it.

[DShomshak]

23 hours ago, Badger said:

Well, I am a conservative in a place that tends to lean a bit more left than I do.  So, me getting piled on, is going to happen now and again. 😁

 

As I've noted before, "conservative" can mean anything from "skeptical how government can pay for all the good things people want it to do," to "wants to re-enslave blacks and burn gays at the stake." So, if it's not too personal a question... conservative in what way?

 

(I suppose many people might consider me "conservative" in my advocacy of gradualism. But I think we have some good historical examples of significant and good social change achieved by baby steps over decades, and of attempts at revolutionary change falling flat or going horribly wrong. If you reach a point where drastic change is necessary for raw survival, you've been stupid, because in my 55 years I have never seen a crisis that plenty of people didn't warn of decades in advance. Including pandemics!)

 

Dean Shomshak

[assault]

2 minutes ago, DShomshak said:

If you reach a point where drastic change is necessary for raw survival, you've been stupid, because in my 55 years I have never seen a crisis that plenty of people didn't warn of decades in advance. Including pandemics!)

 

That's kind of the point.

[Ragitsu]

"Dr. Fauci is a fraud/schemer/political plant." is now making the rounds. I even heard a family member angrily disparage the man. Good grief...I find it hard to keep my optimism when baseless rage springs up so close to home.

[Lord Liaden]

If that were true I would certainly have to admire Dr. Fauci's patience in waiting all of his 79 years to make his big move.

[Ragitsu]

36 minutes ago, Lord Liaden said:

If that were true I would certainly have to admire Dr. Fauci's patience in waiting all of his 79 years to make his big move.

 

The more it becomes clear that (insert-beloved-authority-figure-here) cannot repel this virus through sheer patriotic will alone, the more the people around them are going to be thrown to the wolves by the figure's constituency.

[Old Man]

[Ragitsu]

<Reporter asks incisive, hard-hitting question.>

Trump: "Who are you with?"

 

<OAN reporter pushes crazy conspiracy theory.>
Trump: "Yeah. We're going to investigate that."

[Badger]

1 hour ago, Ragitsu said:

"Dr. Fauci is a fraud/schemer/political plant." is now making the rounds. I even heard a family member angrily disparage the man. Good grief...I find it hard to keep my optimism when baseless rage springs up so close to home.

 

My biggest gripe, is it seems a couple times putting foot in mouth, when straying too far from his field of knowledge.  I cant really fault a person for that, really.  Especially, with news conferences, and possibly not being first hand experienced with how journalists can operate.  Too much made of nothing by paranoid ,in this case.

[Ragitsu]

2 minutes ago, Badger said:

 

My biggest gripe, is it seems a couple times putting foot in mouth, when straying too far from his field of knowledge.  I cant really fault a person for that, really.  Especially, with news conferences, and possibly not being first hand experienced with how journalists can operate.  Too much made of nothing by paranoid ,in this case.

 

If I had a second full-time job which, instead of aligning with my area of expertise, involved informing/placating Donald Trump, I imagine that I would eventually become acquainted with the taste of toe jam.

[Lord Liaden]

39 minutes ago, Badger said:

 

My biggest gripe, is it seems a couple times putting foot in mouth, when straying too far from his field of knowledge.  I cant really fault a person for that, really.  Especially, with news conferences, and possibly not being first hand experienced with how journalists can operate.  Too much made of nothing by paranoid ,in this case.

 

I keep reading/hearing that about Dr. Fauci, but from my experience of his conferences it's exaggerated at worst. Fauci tries very hard to give honest, measured responses to questions, but since they usually take up more than one sound bite parts of them keep getting taken out of context and sensationalized. For example, I read a comment on YouTube just today: "Dr Fauci told us on Feb 29 that there was no reason not to go to malls or movie theaters. Stupid."

Here is a link to the actual interview from that date on NBC's "Today" show. To quote Dr. Fauci: "Right now, at this moment, there is no need to change anything you're doing on a day-by-day basis. Right now the risk is still low, but this could change. I've said that many times, even on this program. You've got to watch out, because although the risk is low now, you don't need to change anything you're doing, you start to see community spread, this could change, and force you to become much more attentive to doing things that would protect you from spread."