[Peace-discuss] Left and right

[John W.]

At 09:48 AM 7/16/2007, Robert Dunn wrote:

>ok Wason, what do you mean by Rob Dunn "and his ilk." That sounds so much 
>like the stereotyping that i thought folks on the Left are supposed to avoid!

Ah, well...I'm not on the Left, as I've tried to make clear.  So I can 
stereotype all I want.  Nyah nyah! :-P


>Do you know who my "ilk" are?

Sure...all those who throw around the terms "Left" and "Right" without 
knowing what they're talking about.


>Have you had the courage to go to Memphis on Main every Tuesday and 
>actually converse with my "ilk."

Is that a question?  What is Memphis on Main, and what happens there on 
Tuesdays?  Why would I need courage?


>You are starting to sound like the ole Southern racist talking about "yer 
>kind."
>
>My definition of Right is an awareness and a respect for the realities of 
>human nature. Human nature is not essentially good and when given too much 
>power, tyranny results.

I agree, interestingly enough.


>The Right in America wants power to be defused to as local a level as 
>possible.

Is that right?  :-)  (Pun only partially intended.)  It's what Republicans 
sometimes say, but emphatically not what they DO.  It's just rhetoric.  The 
reality is that under Republican administrations, the government 
bureaucracy and our budget deficit GROW.


>That is why we place so much for emphasis on the family, community, and 
>civic organizations instead of relying on Uncle Sam to fix all of our 
>problems.
>
>The Left has no respect for human nature and even denies that humans have 
>an inherent nature. Its all about the will to power. Rousseau claimed that 
>humans must be forced to be free. This force is mostly through coercion. 
>Whether passing ordinances such as the smoking ban, passing speech codes 
>to liberate "oppressed" groups from hearing "offensive speech" on college 
>campuses, forcing men to take mandatory "rape awareness" seminars, and to 
>the more brutal forms of Marxism-Leninism/Stalinism/Nazism/the IDF, etc, 
>terror and coercion must be used against the various class enemies that 
>the vanguard calls for.

So if I understand this correctly, the Left forces you to do things that 
are good for YOU, while the Right forces you to do things that benefit THEM?


>To achieve full equality demands that we give up freedom. Even in the 
>Left's utopia of the old Soviet bloc

Um...that was never my utopia.


>and even the current paradise of Cuba that the Left fawns over, wealth has 
>been concentrated in only the party apparatchik, stripped from 
>entrepreneurs and business people.

Basically true.  That's because those governments are actually Right, as 
Carl has explained so eloquently.


>A lover of freedom has to accept some inequality. There is inequality of 
>talent for example. A car repairman is superior to me in his knowledge of 
>cars, there is an inequality, but legally and according to natural right, 
>we are equals due to human nature.

And therefore your conclusion is...?


>The main difference between Left and Right is about human nature. The 
>Right wants to preserve social arrangements that serve as a buffer between 
>flawed humans and the state such as family, communities, religious 
>institutions, and civic organizations.

And the Left wants to do away with all of those things??  Or does it merely 
want to add one additional buffer - that of government of, by, and for the 
people?


>The Left wants to "liberate" humans from these arrangements and have 
>autonomous individuals who are supposedly liberated but are actually now 
>slaves to big brother.

I see.  And you read this where exactly?


>John, please from now on, have some respect and if you want to address me, 
>address me instead of referring to me and "my ilk" whomever that is. I 
>suppose Bob and Carl are my ilk since they are one of the few people on 
>this list that i actually enjoy having  pleasant conversation with!

That's because they're more civilized than I am.



>
>From:  "John W." <jbw292002 at gmail.com>
>To:  "Morton K. Brussel" <brussel at uiuc.edu>
>CC:  peace-discuss at lists.chambana.net
>Subject:  Re: [Peace-discuss] Left and right
>Date:  Sun, 15 Jul 2007 21:27:57 -0500
> >At 04:24 PM 7/15/2007, Morton K. Brussel wrote:
> >
> >>All this seems simplistic. The "left-right" distinction does not seem
> >>to me to be one dimensional. There is no non-amorphous delineation.
> >>In addition to the democratic distinctions Carl alludes to, there are
> >>others. Customarily attributed to these adjectives is a social
> >>dimension, ("socialism", "communism",  political and economic
> >>egalitarianism [not simply reducible to democracy]), and, of course,
> >>there is the issue of capitalism, which Marx in particular brought
> >>into play, although I don't remember whether he used "left-right"
> >>terminology. All that said, "it is a demarcation fraught with
> >>ambiguity", and I'm afraid not resolved here.
> >
> >Precisely.  And that was my point.  I'm sick of Rob Dunn and his ilk
> >saying "The Left believes this" and "The Right believes that" and
> >pronouncing who among us is "Left" and "Right". It's utterly
> >meaningless.
> >
> >
> >>(I really didn't want to get into this. A debate could last
> >>indefinitely. )
> >>
> >>--mkb
> >>
> >>
> >>On Jul 15, 2007, at 11:04 AM, C. G. Estabrook wrote:
> >>
> >>>It's a commonplace that the distinction between Left and Right is
> >>>fraught with ambiguity. (When the Democratic party is spoken of as
> >>>on the Left, it's gotten pretty silly.) And it's also generally
> >>>accepted that the terminology arose from the seating arrangements
> >>>in the French National Assembly of 1789.
> >>>
> >>>But if we want a consistent usage for the Left/Right distinction,
> >>>we might think of political parties ranged along a line according
> >>>to how authoritarian or democratic they are. The further Right one
> >>>goes, the more authoritarian the parties, and the further Left, the
> >>>more democratic. (At the far Left end are the socialists, who want
> >>>not just a democratic polity but a democratic economy as well --
> >>>investment decisions made not by corporations but by elections.)
> >>>
> >>>Lenin's Bolsheviks, then, must be seen as a right-wing Marxist
> >>>party, as must all twentieth century communist parties in the
> >>>Marxist-Leninist tradition, owing to their authoritarianism. (And
> >>>they were indeed so described by left-wing Marxists like Rosa
> >>>Luxemburg and Anton Pannekoek.)
> >>>
> >>>The commitment to democracy and an ever-widening franchise means
> >>>that it has been the Left under this definition that has called
> >>>attention to marginalized groups in the modern West. The historic
> >>>task of the Left has been to include in political and civil
> >>>society
> >>>groups formerly excluded on the grounds that their full humanity
> >>>was denied -- e.g., Africans, Amerindians, and women.
> >>>
> >>><http://www.counterpunch.org/estabrook01172003.html>http://www.counterp 
> unch.org/estabrook01172003.html
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: http://lists.chambana.net/cgi-bin/private/peace-discuss/attachments/20070716/021d2a6b/attachment.htm