Like not allowing homosexuals to marry? Wanting to throw out the right of privacy? Suuuuuuure, buddy. By the way, basing your definition of liberals on one person is hardly conclusive, and frankly, rather ignorant.
------------------ Star Trek Gamma Quadrant Average Rated 6.27 out of 10 Smileys by Fabrux (with four eps posted) *** "Oh, yes, screw logic, let's go for a theory with no evidence!" -Forum Member Who Shall Be Nameless. 11:48am, Jan. 19th, 2001
posted
Unfortunately, the "Right of Privacy" is not implicit in the Constitution or other documents. It's a very tenuous, ephemeral thing that has been used both for good and evil purposes.
Likewise, rights like that of free speech have been eroded by people from both sides (or have we forgotten that it was CLINTON who failed to veto the latest Internet restriction bill, when he could have?)
From the CDA to the MPAA to the PMRC to the CCA, to various 'hate speech' acts "whaddaya mean, 'water buffalo' is a racist term??", to restrictions (some of which are reasonable, others of which are ludicrous) as to what can be said in certain company, or by certain people. (A woman comic can rip on men's frailties and insanity till the cows come home, but a male comic ranting on women? *boot*)
------------------ "My knowledge and experience far exceeds your own, by, oh, about a BILLION times!" -- Q
As I have said multiple times, I support this. It's a conservative idea to get the government out of religious business. Some people who are generally conservative just don't realize that.
Wanting to throw out the right of privacy?
WTF are you talking about here?
------------------ Disclaimer: "All references to vices and of the supernatural contained in this game are for entertainment purposes only. _Over_The_Edge_ does not promote satanisim, belief in magic, drug use, violence, sexual deviation, body piercing, cynical attitudes toward the government, freedom of expression, or any other action or belief not condoned by the authorities." - `OverTheEdge'
posted
Unless you worded that wrong, Omega, I'm not surprised you support those who oppose homosexual marriages. The Christian Right (which, BTW, is neither) is very much opposed to any of the "gay lifestyle." It's also, BTW, a fight which tends to tack to liberals, and some moderates, but few conservatives.
That was the bill supported by Ashcroft, wasn't it?
I don't think the example you gave of the comics is quite fair. That's more of a public perception there, and honestly, it's not even a very realistic example. There are a lot of male (and female) comedians who don't get flack for their 'ripping on female' routines, or their 'ripping on male' routines. The flack they usually do get is from interest groups and individuals.
------------------ Star Trek Gamma Quadrant Average Rated 6.27 out of 10 Smileys by Fabrux (with four eps posted) *** "Oh, yes, screw logic, let's go for a theory with no evidence!" -Forum Member Who Shall Be Nameless. 11:48am, Jan. 19th, 2001
posted
A 'water buffalo' is a water tank on a trailer. Makes a half-assed shower in the woods for infantrymen, but usually thirst is priorty one.
------------------ "One's ethics are determined by what we do when no one is looking" Nugget Star Trek: Gamma Quadrant Star Trek: Legacy Read them, rate them, got money, film them
"...and I remain on the far side of crazy, I remain the mortal enemy of man, no hundred dollar cure will save me..." WoV
posted
Jeff: Yes, but who has all the 'interest groups?' Not men, and definitely not white men.
I THINK Omega was supporting gay marriage, since marriage is largely a legal institution nowadays.
Incidentally, did you know that the SSI Administration (the govt. program which my handicapped fiancee's medical bills, and gives her a pittance of a living wage at $550 a month) will cut off her money and benefits entirely if she marries me? Talk about LACK of support for the family, or at least, low-income families. At my current salary, that'd be a REAL stretch to make ends meet.
Ritten: I was referring to a white male college student who was expelled from his university because he referred to a small group of 'full-figured' female black students who were being very loud outside his window early in the morning as 'water buffaloes' when he was yelling at them to go away and be quiet. They sued.
------------------ "My knowledge and experience far exceeds your own, by, oh, about a BILLION times!" -- Q
[This message has been edited by First of Two (edited February 09, 2001).]
posted
Yeah, as I recall, they won, too. They claimed that he was calling them "large, stupid black animals from Africa". Never mind the fact that the kid was a Jew, and that "water buffalo" is the literal translation of a Yiddish insult. Also never mind the fact that water buffalo are from Asia.
And Rob is correct. At least someone here pays attention to my stated beliefs. But just so there's no confusion, I don't support the CONCEPT of gay marriage, just the legal right.
------------------ Disclaimer: "All references to vices and of the supernatural contained in this game are for entertainment purposes only. _Over_The_Edge_ does not promote satanisim, belief in magic, drug use, violence, sexual deviation, body piercing, cynical attitudes toward the government, freedom of expression, or any other action or belief not condoned by the authorities." - `OverTheEdge'
posted
First off, its immeasurably dumb to get into a tizzy about who can better define the term "liberal" and "conservative." They're words like "tall" or "fat."
Restricting the definition of which is one and which is the other to whether they favor "bigger" or "smaller" government is crazy. For starters, everyone has a different idea of what "bigger government" means. It could mean a more interventionist policy on social security issues. It could mean a larger civil service. It could mean a government that spends lots of money. It could mean a government that is visible. Ad nauseum.
For instance, the Mulroney government in Canada assembled an enormous bureaucracy and raised taxes, and yet nobody challenged its status as right-of-center. Chretien's Liberals came to power, cut the bureaucracy and public spending in general, and nobody pointed at them and said they favoured "small government."
However, Jeff's interpreation is also somewhat suspect. Many right-of-center politicians in Canada come to mind as being generally progressive-minded with regards to social issues. Up here, fiscal policy seems to be the biggest contributing factor to a "liberal," "social democrat" or "conservative" label.
But I digress. For the only satisfactory answer, we've gotta call on our friend Mr. Spectrum.
You see, we have a somewhat arbitrary thing called a political spectrum, where we line up politicians roughly according to their political beliefs. It's incredibly innacurate, party lines will undoubtedly be blurred, etc. But it's really the only acceptable way to label people something.
We can start with our line and then wave our arms at a huge chunk of them off to the left and call them socialists. We can then point out that some of them to the extreme Left are communists (which can be broken down further into Stalinists, Leninists etc.) and those closer to the center are Social Democrats. But sprinkled in there are Greens... often not particulary eye-to-eye with the Union leaders of the world. They aren't socialists. How far to the left do you stick Allende? Castro? Aristide? Marx? Orwell? Roddenberry? I think you can see how fuzzy this all is becoming.
Pretty near the center, with perhaps a few more on the left side of the centerline than the right are the liberals. Is Chretien there? I think so. How about FDR? Yup. Trudeau? Yup. JFK? Probably. Jimmy Carter? Yeah, possibly the only American president ever to be left of the midway mark. Blair? yeah, he's in the clump somewhere, though most of his coworkers are over hanging with the Social Democrats. Clinton? Definitely on the right side of the line, but probably in there nonetheless. Joe Clark, leader of Canada's Progressive Conservative Party? Toughie. One so-called Liberal leader who isn't here is my local example, Premier-to-be Gordon Campbell of BC. His party is called the BC Liberals, but they're liberal in name only. He's far further right, exchanging anecdotes with Mike Harris.
The liberals bleed into the moderate Conservatives. McCain. Lougheed (look him up). I'd risk Nixon here, maybe even Eisenhower. If Joe Clark isn't actually a closet liberal, he's in this pack.
To their right come the hardliners, which include the neoconservatives of today some of the conservatives of the Past. Dubya. Daddy. Reagan. Thatcher. The Canadian neoconservative contingent to this category includes Conrad Black, Ralph Klein, Mike Harris, the aforementioned Gordon Campbell, and all the members of the Canadian Alliance Party who don't fall into the next category, the Fundies and Fascists. Buchanan. Limbaugh. Ashcroft. Pinochet. Mussolini. Hitler.
Of course, problems remain. Where do you put the Libertarians? Or the Anarchists? Somebody stick Putin into the lineup, or Mandela. Can you?
Bring an American into the Room, and the centerline of the spectrum immediately shifts, sliding rightwards so the moderate conservatives touch the line. Bring in a Swede, and it slides back so the Liberals are dead center, with social democrats no more off-center than the likes of McCain. Bring in a panel of political scientists from democracies all over the world and it resets itself somewhere closer to where I said it was, dividing Liberals between a slightly larger chunk to the left and a slightly smaller chunk to the right.
Omega made an the apparently indisputable claim that Clinton is a liberal. Dead wrong. The DNC today is right-of-center. It looks very liberal all of a sudden if the only point of comparison is the Republican Party, but that's like saying Drew Barrymore is fat when you stand her next to Callista Flockhart. A panel of medical experts would put Ms. Barrymore on the same side of the median line as Ms. Flockhart, with the former clearly much closer to the middle. But ask a TV viewer whose only really seen those two actresses or those with very similar body shapes if Barrymore is fat and he'll say yes.
If GW Bush were to enter Canadian Politics, he'd most likely wind up in the Canadian Reform Conservative Alliance, our local neoconservative and fundie social club. Clinton, on the other hand, would probably fit in better with the Progressive Conservative Party of Canada than the Liberal Party.
In Canada, the entire liberal/conservative thing is especially fun because we have political parties with said words in their titles. As a result, Canadians have our little system of talking about "small-c conservatives" and "small-l liberals." We've also got the term "Red Tories," which are what used to be the centrist wing of the PC Party (including Mr. Clark) that now make up pretty much the entirety of the organization since the CA arrived on the scene.
------------------ "People have the right to discriminate based on religion." "There is no "seperation of church and state" in the Constitution" -Omega, Jan 26 and 30, respectively
posted
But I don't think you can use Canada's "Conservative" parties as examples of those. The Alliance, the only "Conservative" party with actual backing, is merely a Western Alienation party. Therefore, they'll be more change-oriented, in order to "get those anti-west bastards in Ottawa to realize they hate the west". (Living in 4 different provinces helps you get acquainted with regional trife.) Therefore, our "Conservatives", are not.
------------------ "...screw logic, let's go for a theory with no evidence!" - Omega.
But wouldn't legal allowance for Gay marriages recognize them as people? And doesn't that = bad with some books, and some other old stuff?
No books I've been reading.
Seriously, you guys get the strangest ideas about the Bible. (I assume that was what you were refering to.) Perhaps you should read it some time.
Tom:
For starters, everyone has a different idea of what "bigger government" means.
Bigger in this context is best defined as more intrusive into your personal life, be it by restricting your activities, or simply by reducing your income, and thus options, with higher taxes.
We can then point out that some of them to the extreme Left are communists
Technically, Communists would be extreme right, since the philosophy favors no government at all. It's basically a dreamers anarchy.
You define Hitler as being CONSERVATIVE? He was a frikin' DICTATOR, for cryin' out loud! That's as left as you get! Well, short of the Borg Collective, or 1984...
Where do you put the Libertarians?
WAY right.
Or the Anarchists?
Extreme right.
Another advantage of using my definitions, aside from the fact that they're the ones people use anyway, is that they simplify things so much. Every possible political philosophy can be fit into the scale somewhere.
It also helps to codify them in a very simple manner. Then you can't have people saying, "Oh, he's racist, and therefore conservative!" in contravention of any and all evidence.
Of course, I've been through this with Daryus multiple times. I am fully aware that these definitions only apply in the US, because we're the only ones that mean these things when we use the words. But we ARE talking about US politics in this thread, are we not?
------------------ Disclaimer: "All references to vices and of the supernatural contained in this game are for entertainment purposes only. _Over_The_Edge_ does not promote satanisim, belief in magic, drug use, violence, sexual deviation, body piercing, cynical attitudes toward the government, freedom of expression, or any other action or belief not condoned by the authorities." - `OverTheEdge'
posted
UM: While the Alliance continues to draw most of its support from the West, I would disagree vehemently that Western alienation is its dominant political plank. Klein-style neoconservatism combined with decentralization policies, yes, but western BQ, no. Most of Bay Street (Mr. Black and co, for starters) who formerly backed Mulroney have thrown their money at Stock (the CA easily have the second largest political coffers in the country and most of it has been raised in the last year). Considering the lengths the party went to to woo voters in Ontario, to call it a party with only regional interests is insulting. (Hey, I hate them too, but don't underestimate one's enemy.)
But I digress.
Omega, I think we've found where're you're fucking up.
You equate left with maximum intrusiveness, massive dictatorship, etc. and right with absolute liberty/anarchy.
That's a ridiculous statment. Absolutely ridiculous.
What you apparently subscibe to is a spectrum all right. It's a useful method of organizing ideologies and I don't really dipute your positioning of each on it. But this spectrum that you have in your mind isn't the same one everyone else uses when they talk about "left wing" and "right wing." It's not, ahem, the political spectrum, that is, the left to right one any student with so much as a high school politics course could tell you about.
When CNN calls Ariel Sharon right-wing, does that mean he supports liberty and equality and government nonintervention for all? Is Barak therefore more dictatorial than Sharon? Gee, fuck no, I think not. Sharon's considered right wing because he supports maintaining the status quo, rejects making concessions to the poor and downtrodden and has strong religious fundamentalist backing. Those are typical right wing characteristics. You can similar threads running through Pat Buchanan's platform or Rush Limbaugh's diatribes.
Omega, pick up a fucking book and read it. The fact that you're so ignorant to even basic political science astounds me, considering how often you wax political on us all. I'm not asking you to read and accept the Origin of Species. I'm asking you to familiarize yourself with general knowledge before you shoot your mouth off and embarrass yourself.
The Nazis were right wing. Mussolini and later Hitler subscribed to a concept called "the corporate state," that is, government giving its allies in industry carte blanche to organize society into a lean, directed operation, running the state like a business in the hunt for profit (or, in Germany and Italy's case, territory, pride and wealth). Fascism is, sadly enough, an offshoot of Conservatism. This isn't liberal pansy Tom making up stuff to discredit your political interests. I mean, Ike Eisenhower is, for all intents and purposes, as far removed from Hitler ideologically as Tony Blair, regardless of which side of the spectrum they're on. But don't toss it onto the left end of the spectrum just because its got a Command Economy.
The Mujahiden are right-wing, too. If you're convinced that your little spectrum you've outlined is indeed correct, I suggest you go and tell them that they're all libertarians to their face.
Pinochet's Chile was right-wing, too. The country's economy was basically run by U. of Chicago business professors as the ultimate model in right-wing capitalism. Ah, you say, but Chile had a dictatorship. Dictatorship = Left. So why don't you come up here to my University and chat up my Poli Sci prof from Chile who was exiled from the country by Pinochet and try to convince him that it was just those damn Lefties at it again.
This is an area where you show next to zero knowledge, Omega. So do many other people, but the difference is, they don't jump up and down correcting me.
------------------ "People have the right to discriminate based on religion." "There is no "seperation of church and state" in the Constitution" -Omega, Jan 26 and 30, respectively
I love you. Wanna get married? Seriously, you need to break out the "me beat you ignorant bastards with political speak" stick more often. Some of the forum posters in here really need it.
I completely agree, Clinton is not a liberal.
Omega, Poli-Sci 101 is a very good class. I recommend you take it. Preferably, you will continue to other Poli-Sci classes as well at some point.
Also, explain this:
I don't support the CONCEPT of gay marriage, just the legal right
Don't they go rather hand in hand? Isn't it like having a key without a keychain? You get my drift. Kindly elaborate.
[This message has been edited by Right (edited February 10, 2001).]
[This message has been edited by Right (edited February 10, 2001).]
posted
Somebody posted something like this a loong time ago, but I think there's great truth to it, so I'm posting it again in my own words. Forgive any copyright infringements.
The political spectrum is a RING with an open end, like a torque or a claddagh brooch.
Both the extreme right and left wings require dictatorships and massive government control to hold them together, as evidenced by not only Hitler, Mussolini, Tojo and Pinochet, but Stalin, Lenin, Mao, and Castro.
It is the CENTER where Maximum Freedom is located, with the Libertarians, and those who think government existence in life, of ANY kind, Rightist OR Leftist, should be minimized.
If you want to legislate "morality", you're rightist. If you want to legislate "equity" you're leftist. The farther you want to go, the farther left or right you are, because each type destroyes freedom in favor of government control.
But there's very little difference between a dictatorship of fascists and one of communists.
Anarchists? They're not in the ring, because they don't believe in government at all. Also, they're idiots.
------------------ "My knowledge and experience far exceeds your own, by, oh, about a BILLION times!" -- Q
------------------ Star Trek Gamma Quadrant Average Rated 6.27 out of 10 Smileys by Fabrux (with four eps posted) *** "Oh, yes, screw logic, let's go for a theory with no evidence!" -Forum Member Who Shall Be Nameless. 11:48am, Jan. 19th, 2001
Some of the forum posters in here really need it. 
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