On Political Labels

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Reub
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On Political Labels

Post by Reub » Tue Feb 17, 2015 9:29 am

I did not start this thread.
Last edited by Reub on Tue Feb 17, 2015 3:34 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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Re: On Political Labels

Post by Pointedstick » Tue Feb 17, 2015 10:22 am

ochotona wrote: How is a link to a news story bashing anyone?
He was being sarcastic. Reub is the most prominent right-wing member of this forum and is no doubt very happy about the development.  :)

As am I, and I suspect nearly everyone here.
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Re: On Political Labels

Post by Reub » Tue Feb 17, 2015 1:59 pm

Pointedstick wrote:
ochotona wrote: How is a link to a news story bashing anyone?
He was being sarcastic. Reub is the most prominent right-wing member of this forum and is no doubt very happy about the development.  :)

As am I, and I suspect nearly everyone here.
Am I really right wing or are you listing left without even realizing it while I remain squarely in the center? Btw, I was very left wing also when I was in my adolescence.
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Re: On Political Labels

Post by Pointedstick » Tue Feb 17, 2015 2:02 pm

Reub wrote:
Pointedstick wrote:
ochotona wrote: How is a link to a news story bashing anyone?
He was being sarcastic. Reub is the most prominent right-wing member of this forum and is no doubt very happy about the development.  :)

As am I, and I suspect nearly everyone here.
Am I really right wing or are you listing left without even realizing it while I remain squarely in the center? Btw, I was very left wing also when I was in my adolescence.
No, you really are very right wing. It may surprise you, but I'm actually pretty right wing in a lot of ways too. Just not all of them. :)
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Re: On Political Labels

Post by Reub » Tue Feb 17, 2015 2:21 pm

So defending our borders, wanting a stable economy that isn't 18 trillion dollars in debt, preferring that criminals be punished and not coddled, wanting to support our allies, desiring individuals to depend on themselves as much as they can, keeping government as small as possible except for their mandate to protect us, preferring that our President not blatantly lie to us every day of the week all make me right wing? Which of these do you disagree with and which make me far right wing?
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Re: On Political Labels

Post by Pointedstick » Tue Feb 17, 2015 2:42 pm

Reub wrote: So defending our borders, wanting a stable economy that isn't 18 trillion dollars in debt, preferring that criminals be punished and not coddled, wanting to support our allies, desiring individuals to depend on themselves as much as they can, keeping government as small as possible except for their mandate to protect us, preferring that our President not blatantly lie to us every day of the week all make me right wing?
Yes.
Reub wrote: Which of these do you disagree with and which make me far right wing?
Probably the biggest one is your set of foreign policy views, which go beyond "wanting to support our allies" and into the realm of "identifying large parts of the world as in needing immediate U.S. military intervention." Another would be your support for torture.

But for what it's worth, I don't really disagree with you very much on most of the other things. I also want secure borders and for politicians to stop trying to dilute America with foreigners. I support strong punishments for real criminals--possibly stronger than you might even support; I generally favor life imprisonment until rehabilitation (which means never for the common case of the un-rehabilitatable prisoner) as the only punishment. I hate our welfare system, and I think it traps people in poverty. I want more people to get married and stay married. I want the federal government out of education policy. I support fossil fuel exploration and a dramatic expansion of nuclear power. I think there are inherent differences between men and women. I think focusing on and celebrating sexual deviancy and denigrating heterosexual males is offensive. I've never seen a tax that I liked. I want pretty much all the gun control laws to be repealed. I get most of my news from unz.com whose writers are pretty much universally right-of-center. I could go on…
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Re: On Political Labels

Post by Ad Orientem » Tue Feb 17, 2015 2:49 pm

Reub wrote:
Pointedstick wrote:
ochotona wrote: How is a link to a news story bashing anyone?
He was being sarcastic. Reub is the most prominent right-wing member of this forum and is no doubt very happy about the development.  :)

As am I, and I suspect nearly everyone here.
Am I really right wing or are you listing left without even realizing it while I remain squarely in the center? Btw, I was very left wing also when I was in my adolescence.
I am not sure how far you are to the right. But I think your hatred for Obama borders on neurotic. If that is an indicator of being right wing then I'd say that if the world were flat, you would be in imminent danger of falling off the rightward edge. And I say that as someone who intensely disagrees with almost everything the man stands for.
Last edited by Ad Orientem on Tue Feb 17, 2015 2:51 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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Re: On Political Labels

Post by moda0306 » Tue Feb 17, 2015 2:49 pm

Reub,

The fact that you can't see yourself as very conservative is quite surprising to me.  I don't speak for others, but I have to assume most would agree.

That isn't to say that being "moderate" is anything to be proud of.  This isn't a moral value judgement.  But you're pretty much the quintessential right-winger.
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Re: On Political Labels

Post by MachineGhost » Tue Feb 17, 2015 4:00 pm

ochotona wrote: How is a link to a news story bashing anyone?
What news story?  I see nothing!

I don't view Reub as "very right wing"....  to me that would be a RIFFF (Radical Islamist Fanatical Fundamentalist Fascist).

But I do view him as "conservative" because we don't really know his social views...  I would peg him as northeast-of-center on the political map because of the NeoCon imperative which is authoritation by nature.

[align=center]Image[/align]
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Re: On Political Labels

Post by MachineGhost » Tue Feb 17, 2015 4:19 pm

TennPaGa wrote: What do the two axes represent in that 2-by-2?
Economic Fredom --> Right
Social Freedom --> Down

This is a useful reference from past elections (latest to oldest):

[align=center]Image[/align]
[align=center]Image[/align]
[align=center]Image[/align]
[align=center]Image[/align]
[align=center]Image[/align]

See how Obama moved to the Fabian Democracy (only the upper right quadrant) center after his first term?  And Paul became a bit less of a social control freak.
Last edited by MachineGhost on Tue Feb 17, 2015 4:36 pm, edited 1 time in total.
"All generous minds have a horror of what are commonly called 'Facts'. They are the brute beasts of the intellectual domain." -- Thomas Hobbes

Disclaimer: I am not a broker, dealer, investment advisor, physician, theologian or prophet.  I should not be considered as legally permitted to render such advice!
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Re: On Political Labels

Post by Reub » Tue Feb 17, 2015 5:14 pm

PS, dripping water on a mass murderer's face is not torture.

Support for large scale military intervention as you put it is only supported by me when absolutely necessary. Like against Isis. The alternative is much worse. Sounds like a reasonable, centrist position to me.

Why are you putting words in my mouth?
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Re: On Political Labels

Post by moda0306 » Tue Feb 17, 2015 5:17 pm

Reub wrote: PS, dripping water on a mass murderer's face is not torture.

Support for large scale military intervention as you put it is only supported by me when absolutely necessary. Like against Isis. The alternative is much worse. Sounds like a reasonable, centrist position to me.

Why are you putting words in my mouth?
Reub,

Do you consider anything that came out that the U.S. was doing to prisoners to be torture?

Do you consider "dripping water" on a non-mass-murderer's head to be torture?
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Re: On Political Labels

Post by Pointedstick » Tue Feb 17, 2015 5:28 pm

Reub wrote: PS, dripping water on a mass murderer's face is not torture.
The U.S. Military considers it torture. We hanged Japanese for doing it to our boys in WWII, and soldiers have to undergo it in survival training under the assumption that they may be tortured while in enemy hands.

Reub wrote: Support for large scale military intervention as you put it is only supported by me when absolutely necessary. Like against Isis. The alternative is much worse.
I don't believe I've ever seen you fail to support intervention when there was an option. My perspective is that you seem to think every intervention is "absolutely necessary." You seem to jump at every opportunity to attack foreigners who could possibly be construed as acting against our interests in any manner.

Reub wrote: Sounds like a reasonable, centrist position to me.

Why are you putting words in my mouth?
I might ask why you insist on focusing on these few points of disagreement rather than the vast majority we apparently agree on.

Might I ask why is it so important for you to believe that you're a centrist? Who would you consider to be someone who is very right wing?
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Re: On Political Labels

Post by Reub » Tue Feb 17, 2015 6:29 pm

No, dripping water on a mass murderer's face is not torture in my world.  We do it to our own troops for training purposes unless Obama has changed that recently for political purposes.

I definitely do believe in helping to shape the world to make it a more peaceful, friendly place. Sometimes we need to do more. Like against the Nazis. Or the Islamo Fascists. Sometimes not acting is far worse than acting. This is reality, not the idealistic tomfoolery that some offer on here in its place.

Isn't it interesting how some can claim the moral high ground while allowing a religious group of mass murderers who profess that they want to "see us in New York" behead, burn alive, rape and pillage any who might not be like them? Do you really think that this gives you the high ground?
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Re: On Political Labels

Post by Pointedstick » Tue Feb 17, 2015 6:39 pm

Reub wrote: No dripping water on someone's face is not torture in my world.  We do it to our own troops for training unless Obama has changed it for political purposes.
Right... to train them for possibly being tortured by the enemy!!! :o You can't logically claim that it's not torture and then admit that we harden our own soldiers against having it done to them. If it's not torture, then what's the point of training our soldiers to withstand it? It's just a little water, right? Can't have it both ways.

Reub wrote: I definitely do believe in helping to shape the world to make it a more peaceful, friendly place. Sometimes we need to do more. Like against the Nazis. Or the Islamo Fascists. Sometimes not acting is far worse than acting.
I definitely agree with you that we should use our significant power to make the world a more friendly and peaceful place. I guess to me it seems bittersweet and awkward to proclaim that we need to use violence to kill bad people to make the world a more friendly place when some of our own prior actions using violence to kill other people (bad or not) are by your own admission I believe direct causal factors in the emergence of the latest crop of bad people. It seems like this strategy leads to a whack-a-mole foreign policy of killing bad guys and simultaneously pissing off enough people that we constantly cause more people to turn against us and become new bad guys.

I'm all for self defense and the defense of people who ask for our help, but it seems like we do a lot less of that compared to offensive attacks against people who were not particularly threatening to us, whose resources we wanted, whose political alliances we disapproved of, whose leader's politics we didn't like, or whose people objected to arrangements of the ownership of their resources that were made during colonial times.
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Re: On Political Labels

Post by MachineGhost » Tue Feb 17, 2015 6:46 pm

Pointedstick wrote: I definitely agree with you that we should use our significant power to make the world a more friendly and peaceful place. I guess to me it seems bittersweet and awkward to proclaim that we need to use violence to kill bad people to make the world a more friendly place when some of our own prior actions using violence to kill other people (bad or not) are by your own admission I believe direct causal factors in the emergence of the latest crop of bad people. It seems like this strategy leads to a whack-a-mole foreign policy of killing bad guys and simultaneously pissing off enough people that we constantly cause more people to turn against us and become new bad guys.
Yes, but now we're at the end of the line of all that wrong-headed intervention, unfortunately.  Another Evil Reich is in the making and this one wants to rule them all.  Are we going to just sit by again as isolationists only to later be forced in having the equivalent of another gruesome beachhead assault as in Saving Private Ryan?  It's best to nip evil in the bud before it sprouts, especially evil like ISIS.  I don't even agree with confiscating passports of those that want to one-way immigrate to ISIS.  I WANT them to all go there so they are easier to eradicate.  This is a VIOLENT ideological war.

I am not a NeoCon, but I recognize a serious fucking problem when we have one.  Sometimes you've just got to use the bomb.
Last edited by MachineGhost on Tue Feb 17, 2015 6:53 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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Re: On Political Labels

Post by Reub » Tue Feb 17, 2015 6:46 pm

How long have you been in the hate America first club? We have been the greatest force for peace and liberty in modern times. Just look at how pulling back from the world has caused so much death, real torture, and destruction. And it's getting worse every day that we don't act. You would have left the Nazis to rampage over the entire world, I'm sure.

Come on PS, are you really saying that we are torturing our own troops on a mass scale? Are you serious?
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Re: On Political Labels

Post by Pointedstick » Tue Feb 17, 2015 6:56 pm

Reub wrote: How long have you been in the hate America first club?
Here's our card:

[img width=300]https://i.imgur.com/MghZgKC.gif[/img]


::)  ::)


The reason I think you're extremely right-wing is because you react with what seems to be an incredible amount of surprise and hostility to foreign policy positions like mine and most of the other members here. You don't realize that the mainstream position is one that is supportive of the U.S. while even at least slightly, at certain rare times, dares to questions the utility of U.S. global military belligerence. The idea that anybody would ever do this seems to astonish you. News flash: it's really not that astonishing. And that's why you're a far-right-winger--because you react to even a pretty moderate, middle-of-the road position as though it were the worst thing on earth.

The extreme leftist position is totally different; it basically consists of the dismantlement of the entire U.S. military, giving reparations to the rest of the world, and feeling endless shame at having been the worst global bully in all of human history. That is the position you should be appalled by, not the idea that maybe sometimes we behave selfishly and that our great power allows us to translate that selfishness into action that hurts other people--same as every other country on earth.
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Re: On Political Labels

Post by I Shrugged » Tue Feb 17, 2015 6:57 pm

Reub, the other day you said we'd have been speaking German.  I laughed it off without replying.  Now here you are again.
So you contend, had we remained neutral in WWII, that Germany would have invaded us???

I've heard the speak German thing many times before.  Please realize it's just VFW sloganeering.  It's not remotely true.
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Re: On Political Labels

Post by Reub » Tue Feb 17, 2015 6:59 pm

It is your position that is dangerous, PS. Your position can get us all killed.
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Re: On Political Labels

Post by moda0306 » Tue Feb 17, 2015 6:59 pm

I Shrugged wrote: Reub, the other day you said we'd have been speaking German.  I laughed it off without replying.  Now here you are again.
So you contend, had we remained neutral in WWII, that Germany would have invaded us???

I've heard the speak German thing many times before.  Please realize it's just VFW sloganeering.  It's not remotely true.
Invaded us... and WON!
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Re: On Political Labels

Post by moda0306 » Tue Feb 17, 2015 7:01 pm

Reub wrote: It is your position that is dangerous, PS. Your position can get us all killed.
All?
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Re: On Political Labels

Post by I Shrugged » Tue Feb 17, 2015 7:05 pm

As far as being a younger liberal and then becoming conservative...

Reub, I was JUST LIKE YOU until 2003-4. I mean, I would have agreed 100% with everything you write here.  Up till then I had been very politically active.  It started dawning on me how the Bush team lied to us and led us into a totally immoral war against Iraq.  Then I discovered Harry Browne's radio shows, Ron Paul, Lew Rockwell, and the light went on.

The neocons have been terrible for our country.  Just horrific.  They've created an endless cycle of new enemies and new wars to fight the new enemies.  Just a disaster.  So when you promote another war to fight another enemy we created, I say no way, stop the madness.
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Re: On Political Labels

Post by Pointedstick » Tue Feb 17, 2015 7:06 pm

Reub wrote: It is your position that is dangerous, PS. Your position can get us all killed.
Gosh, how can I argue with logic like that? ::)

In your blind rage against anything not sounding like Fox News, you seem to have mistaken me for some kind of wimpy pacifist.

Honestly what I would do about ISIS if I were king for a day would be to basically carpet bomb them; forget about these lame targeted drone strikes. If ISIS takes a position, we just incinerate it from the air. If we find one of their troop columns, we napalm it into glass. If they take a city, we warn civilians to evacuate, then level the whole thing after a few days. It's not like we can't do these things. Giving weapons to weak factions and using piddly drone missiles is just dumb. These guys just need to be wiped out. ISIS is so unpopular that Arabs in the region really won't mind if we do these things, which actually makes it a good opportunity.

Using violence against evil ones is warranted, but we can't forget our role in helping this evil rise. That's the other part of ending their madness: ceasing to do things that makes people like them more likely to rise in the future once we've killed the current crop.
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Re: On Political Labels

Post by MachineGhost » Tue Feb 17, 2015 7:10 pm

I Shrugged wrote: The neocons have been terrible for our country.  Just horrific.  They've created an endless cycle of new enemies and new wars to fight the new enemies.  Just a disaster.  So when you promote another war to fight another enemy we created, I say no way, stop the madness.
That's the problem with crying wolf too many times.  You wind up with no one believing when the real threat finally shows up.
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