House of Paine article of the History of the Left/Right paradigm

[FEMA Camp Administrator]

Interesting post. I'm only a few words into the article and I'm already seeing problems with it. I think Dallas may have linked me to this or something similar to it at some point in the IRC.

Outside of that, regarding the existence of two "conservative" parties, in this case, you are coming from the concept of one who seemingly has a very narrow view of what the "left" constitutes. In today's world, it would be perfectly valid for a socialist or someone of a similar stripe to complain about two right-wing political parties. However, there's the other side of the coin as well. On the right, one who demands absolute compliance to a fringe ideology could just as easily denounce the two major parties as liberal or left-wing. After all, while it could be said that Bill Clinton was a leader in championing neo-liberalism within his party, presidents like Nixon, Reagan, and Bush never truly threatened the nation's welfare state like a "true rightist" might want, nor did they criminalize abortion. From a fringe perspective, it's easy to denounce both parties as being basically similar, since, from that position, neither will give you what you want.

I shall possibly continue reading now.

[FEMA Camp Administrator]

An interesting article; however, it seems (correct me if I'm wrong) that the author is coming at this subject from that libertarian 'everything can be collapsed into tyranny versus liberty' standpoint, which I think is rather simplistic. After all, what are those two things to be directed towards. It's quite conceivable that you can have an authoritarian government which seeks to smash how society has traditionally been structured, whilst on the other hand you can have a 'libertarian' (weak) government which stands aside and allows for the continued dominance of powerful forces that have traditionally ruled over society. For example, the feudal system, to a very large extent, was not upheld by central governments, but rather by individual landowners. The state in the feudal era wasn't particularly 'authoritarian' (which does not neccessarily make it good) because it was so weak and had so few resources to draw upon.

Thus, one can't neccessarily collapse the left-right division into an 'authoritarian vs libertarian' axis, because that a) ignores the purposes of a certain type of government and b) ignores the practical realities on the ground. Just a thought.

True.

As I noted he had a more strict American libertarian viewpoint on the matter of power than anything.  I am a bit more, well Marxist in thought.  I for one believe the "non-coercion" principle is pretty much garbage and that in some instances the use of force is necessary to achieve objectives.

Of course, strict doctrinaire libs would argue that is statism, but their philosophical beliefs don't give room to combat the scourge of corporations (and arguably many of them see no harm from such institutions).  More to the point, contrary to the beliefs of Anarcho-Capitalists, capitalism can only exist when the state is present and actively supporting it.

So what would I do?  I don't know, but a TNF post is a pretty good start.

The argument posed by the article, overall, seems to take classical liberalism, brand it as "true liberalism", and subsequently brand its only opposite as conservatism. This ignores a broader left-right spectrum that places liberalism between conservatism and socialism, which seems to be how it is traditionally taught, at least by my recollection of Intro to Poli Sci. While it's an interesting take, it is ultimately irrelevant/unfeasible.

[FEMA Camp Administrator]

This is rather obvious, but for reference. Also, I kinda f#cked up which side to put modern left and right on, but I was going off a mental image, a "vision", if you will.