Furthest left and furthest right board members

[Thunderbird is the word]

In relative terms who would you consider the furthest left and furthest right board members?

[Sumner 1868]

TNF and Thomas from NJ.

[Maxwell]

TNF and Cassius.

[H.E. VOLODYMYR ZELENKSYY]

TNF and Cassius.

[Ban my account ffs!]

I'm probably more left wing than TNF.  He's just more aggressive and vengeful about it.  Punish the elites.

Why punish them? We the people have given them and allowed them, with our explicit permission, to keep that power and money and to use it to seek more.

When we realize collectively that this doesn't work and it is inherently wrong and must be changed...there need be no punishment.  The enablers have been punished enough and the newly demoneyed and powerless former elites deserve mercy.

The long view of history has been nothing but offenses and retaliations.  We have to break that cycle or we'll just continue on forgetting past lessons learned and tempt ourselves into relearning them.

[Murica!]

Myself and Cassius

[Mechaman]

The Left: Really open for debate here.  On a forum with this kind of bias more than a few people will likely be coming in here claiming "NO I AM THE GREATEST DISCIPLE, JESUS KARL."  But if I had to really guess, if you had to put a gun to my head, I would say it is that one dude who is down with fucking dogs.  I mean really, you can't really top something that radical.

The Right: Based off of the current data, I'd guess that one reactionary guy from New Jersey who is a Constitution avatar..  Though CJK (before he got banned) could have given him a run for his money.  The most insane poster I have encountered was some dude named prophetman whose act consisted almost entirely of taking passages from the bible to argue that black people were the literal spawns of Satan.  Not joking.

[Ban my account ffs!]

No mecha..the real radical finds nothing inherently wrong with f**king dogs, but opposes the practice because you cannot accurately interpret consent.

[Mechaman]

No mecha..the real radical finds nothing inherently wrong with f**king dogs, but opposes the practice because you cannot accurately interpret consent.

Yes, just like the real left wing position is to denounce revolutionary action and appease the elites, lol.

Look, I don't agree with TNF's pro-murder Left positioning, but it is certainly to the left of your. . . . whatever the hell you call your feel good progressive ideology.

Mind though that I am not one of those idiot hacks that believes that the more Left equals the most ideal.  I just subscribe to what has been agreed by scholars and other experts of what constitutes "left vs. right".  As in guys who actually read books on ideological differences.  And this is not just a something like "well, what is the left wing view of GMO products?" kind of thing.  This is pretty much a fundamental defining trait of Leftism.  Leftism is not about giving hugs and telling everyone to get along, it is about radical and egalitarian change.

And no, the elites have not been abused enough, look at the modern Democratic Party as an example (where the party is pretty much advocating the policy of Wall Street).  Sure, I do not agree with TNF's conclusions that we should hang them all and line them up against the wall and shoot them, but the possession of excess wealth and land ownership (yes I am going there again) is a crime against humanity by far left standards (something that Marxists and the Anarcho-Left agree on).  I do not see how unlanding the bastards (preferably through non-violent and democratic means) is somehow to the right of giving them hugs and telling them it's okay just as long as they sign the dotted line on this not-so-bad 10% tax increase.  If you leave out a lot of TNF's pro-murder rhetoric his vision of society is extremely left wing by any objective measure (he is basically defending the Marxist-Leninist view).  I mean yes, it is not the ideal view of society one should have, but the notion that you are somehow to his left is, well it's pretty damn hilarious.

Sorry dude, but your posts in this thread is just as lolzy as mine.  Which really, that was more to prove the point I stated earlier in that a few of the left wing posters will simply come in here and pull the Disciple of Jesus act on everyone.  I don't intend on doing that because I am pretty sure that there are more than a few guys on here who support going much further than I do and propose doing radical actions a lot quicker than I do (I am pretty moderate hero in that regard, just read my posts on combatting the Cost of Living, LMFAO).

[Goldwater]

Left: TNF
Right: One of the C-whattever avatars.

[DC Al Fine]

Are we talking overall, or in specific dimensions? Because I can think of half a dozen posters who are more free market than Thomas.

[Goldwater]

Are we talking overall, or in specific dimensions? Because I can think of half a dozen posters who are more free market than Thomas.

Yeah, this where measuring things like this becomes an issue. I mean, who is further to the right, a fascist or an anarcho-capitalist?

[SUSAN CRUSHBONE]

tnf/pingvin

[TNF]

Are we talking overall, or in specific dimensions? Because I can think of half a dozen posters who are more free market than Thomas.

Yeah, this where measuring things like this becomes an issue. I mean, who is further to the right, a fascist or an anarcho-capitalist?

A fascist. Traditionalism is basically what defines the political right, after all.

[WalterMitty]

isnt tnf pro gun and pro smoking?

[© tweed]

isnt tnf pro gun and pro smoking?

the question is not "who is the most liberal" but "who is the most left-wing?"  

revolutionary socialists tend to fall into three camps on gun control:

-those who support it do not see it as one of the 1000 most important political issues of the day.

-many are ambivalent or apathetic, which, incidientally, is my position: I see the gun control issue as one of the 'wedge issues' (ie. abortion, gay marriage) which are used by the ruling class to turn electoral politics away from issues of political economy

-others are of the "arm the working class!" type bent.  


I find that last position to be naive, or, at least, outdated.  as Richard Seymour said, if arming the American working class was going to liberate the American working class, it would have happened already.  

the 2010s may well be the first time force is on the side of the state.  even if revolutionary socialism took off over the next decade in the USA, and became a mass movement willing to use violence to overthrow the state, it's very likely they'd lose *even if* the police and National Guard refused to fire at them.  a few computers in the Pentagon controlling drone technology, biological weapons, etc. could subdue an insurrection even if 98-99% of the population supported it.

[TheDeadFlagBlues]

Furthest left: tweed.

Furthest right: pingvin.

[politicus]

Are we talking overall, or in specific dimensions? Because I can think of half a dozen posters who are more free market than Thomas.

Yeah, this where measuring things like this becomes an issue. I mean, who is further to the right, a fascist or an anarcho-capitalist?

A fascist. Traditionalism is basically what defines the political right, after all.

Left-right makes the most sense as a socio-economic scale and becomes a lot more blurred and arbitrary once you try to arrange social issues along it. The temperance movement started as a progressive cause in many countries embraced by the labour movement, but few would view prohibition as a left wing positon today. Is it left or right wing to want to ban prostitution? It is left wing position in my part of the world, but would be a conservative cause in plenty of other cultures.

Capitalism is essentially a radical force that absolves traditional culture and ways of life, so making traditonalism what defines the right creates some inherent contradictions.

[Thunderbird is the word]

isnt tnf pro gun and pro smoking?

Honestly I don't really see either of those as rigid left vs right issues.

[DC Al Fine]

Are we talking overall, or in specific dimensions? Because I can think of half a dozen posters who are more free market than Thomas.

Yeah, this where measuring things like this becomes an issue. I mean, who is further to the right, a fascist or an anarcho-capitalist?

A fascist. Traditionalism is basically what defines the political right, after all.

Because nothing says traditionalism like an anti-clerical leader creating a brand new society

[free my dawg]

SWE/Pingvin

[🐒Gods of Prosperity🔱🐲💸]

Are we talking overall, or in specific dimensions? Because I can think of half a dozen posters who are more free market than Thomas.

Yeah, this where measuring things like this becomes an issue. I mean, who is further to the right, a fascist or an anarcho-capitalist?

A fascist. Traditionalism is basically what defines the political right, after all.

Left-right makes the most sense as a socio-economic scale and becomes a lot more blurred and arbitrary once you try to arrange social issues along it. The temperance movement started as a progressive cause in many countries embraced by the labour movement, but few would view prohibition as a left wing positon today. Is it left or right wing to want to ban prostitution? It is left wing position in my part of the world, but would be a conservative cause in plenty of other cultures.

Capitalism is essentially a radical force that absolves traditional culture and ways of life, so making traditonalism what defines the right creates some inherent contradictions.

Right-left isn't about particular positions, but about the reasons behind those positions.  Capitalism has been and can be critiqued from the right for these traditionalist reasons you cite. Those on the right who embrace capitalism see capitalism as strengthening of those aspects of culture which they value, and/or advocate moderating forces to address the disrupting aspects of capitalism while still seeing it as the best available economic arrangement.

Ultimately any right-left categorization of political ideology is going to fall apart, but any distinction should be based on what are people responding to, what drives them to consider certain courses of action and ideas. There are conversations within the left and within the right, debates about what should be done, but these debates will tend to have some sort of base core value or narrative which structures that debate.  In the case of the Left especially this core narrative may be much more defined, with different interpretations of Marx, but still lead to an extremely wide variety of political programs, some focused on economics, others focused more on "cultural studies". The Right will more often argue about first principles even if there tends to be less radical divergence in its views on course of action.  (I'm making broad extremely flawed generalizations of course)

[politicus]

Right-left isn't about particular positions, but about the reasons behind those positions.  

I do not subscribe to the idea that there is one correct definition of left and right. Those are concepts under constant negotiation. Still, even if often used as identity markers left and right are relative terms so they do not make much sense unless they are used about positions on a scale.

What you say is true on a number of issues incl. prohibition and prostitution (immigration would be a another good example on how different motives people have for holding the same positions), but taken to the extreme this logic means that two people could have basically the same political positions and be placed widely apart on the left/right scale because their motivations for holding those positions were different. This makes the scale pointless. It needs to be anchored around a set of positions to be meaningful - and socio-economic issues makes far more sense as the point of departure for such a categorization. They are  more constant over time and deals with "who gets what", which is the central aspect of politics.

The social liberal/social conservative scale generally align with the economic left-right scale in the Western world, but far from always and only in a very general sense and social issues are not as easily categorized into left and right precisely because positions can be attained from various ideological views.

[Grumpier Than Uncle Joe]

Texasgurl - Leftista

Naso - rightie

[🦀🎂🦀🎂]

WalterMitty is the only left-winger on this forum, unlike right-wing populists like TNF and Snowstalker.