sweetnsauer
Regular Member
That's stating the obvious. Sort of like: Q: What is voodoo culture? A: The culture of people who practice voodoo. So it doesn't really strike the target.
"Conservatism" is not, I repeat -- NOT -- the "opposite" of "liberalism", folks. You're likely basing this incorrect assumption on what you've been told by others or the use of the antiquated and fallacious, one-dimensional "left-right spectrum" of the French Revolution. During the French Revolution, members of parliament were split; the "conservatives", those wishing to preserve the pre-existing social order (the loyalists, monarchists, religious, mercantilists, militarists, etc), sat on the right side, and the "liberals", those wanting to form a new social order (socialists, democrats and republicans, internationalists, libertarians, etc), sat on the left side. For some reason, we Americans have held onto this rather silly means of categorization to the point of becoming deluded with its false implications; so much so that it affects the way we vote. Think about this... We consider Ghandi to be of the "far left", but Stalin is also considered "far left": so how could a peace-loving activist and a murdering madman be at the same "extreme"? And with the similarities between Stalin and Hitler, how could they be opposites? How could fascism be the opposite of communism, and capitalism also be the opposite of communism? This makes no sense. Politics is not a one-dimensional spectrum, friends, and cannot be put into black and white -- left and right.
The terms left-wing and right-wing are widely used in United States but, as on the global level, there is no firm consensus about their meaning. The only aspect which is generally agreed upon is that they are the defining opposites of the United States political spectrum. Left and right in the U.S. are generally associated with liberal and conservative respectively, although the meanings of the two sets of terms do not entirely coincide. Depending on the political affiliation of the individual using them, these terms can be spoken with varying implications. -- Wikipedia
The terms "liberal" and "conservative" themselves are also extremely misleading, and have no uniform definition; nor are either of them uniform or consistent ideologies. I consider the terms rather vague and useless, and I encourage Americans to delve deeper into political science to find out "what" they really are. I tend to only use the terms "liberal" and "conservative" in the way we'd use them to describe the application of lotion or the spreading of butter on toast, haha. In America, "liberal" is little more than a code-word for socialist or social democrat, and conservative is a code-word for any number of things, including religious zealots, militarists, right-leaning Keynesians, nationalists, all of the above, etc. These two cliques in mainstream US politics are NOT opposites. On the contrary, they are more like brothers... conjoined twins, better yet. Together they comprise only a tiny sliver of the entire range of political thought (which is part of the reason I feel we are a very narrow-minded, "unenlightened" and "politically unsophisticated" country). When we look at the world through a pinhole, we don't see much... And to make matters worse, the historical usage of these terms makes the waters even muddier. There was a time when a hardcore "free market" and individual liberties guy like me would have been called a "liberal"... but now I'm called "classical liberal" or "libertarian". In fact, the Republican Party, the party of Lincoln, was a "liberal" party while the Democrats (who wanted to maintain the pre-existing social order and institution of slavery) were "conservative". Now things are quite different... The Democratic party has strong socialist leanings, while the Republican party has abandoned its roots in the libertarian realm and become an authoritarian party with Keynesian economic tendencies. And it gets worse... these terms mean different things all over the world! :banghead:
A better way of breaking down the political playing field is to use a two-dimensional spectrum. The X-axis (left to right) is the economic axis, and the Y-axis (top to bottom) is the social/state axis. When we look at it this way, things begin to make good sense... the "far left" is communism/collectivism, while the "far right" is total free enterprise/economic individualism; and the top is authoritarianism/totalitarianism, while the bottom is anarchism/libertarianism. These respective pairs are actually opposites. When we look at things this way, we also see a clearer picture of where prominent political figures rank:
Click to enlarge...
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1) George W Bush
2) Barrack Obama
3) Bill Clinton
4) Rick Santorum
5) Newt Gingrich
6) Rick Perry
7) Ron Paul
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A) Joseph Stalin
B) Adolf Hitler
C) Ghandi
D) Milton Friedmann
E) Augusto Pinochet
F) Ludwig von Mises
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You'll see some historical figures as well as modern politicians on the spectrum. Take a moment to think it over. Don't trouble yourself so much with the precision placement of each individual, but rather think about the concept and the implications of it. A cool website, Political Compass, has a similar spectrum. They also have a test which will place you on the spectrum, and I suggest everyone who hasn't tried it follow the link and take it! Though I disagree with some of their concepts and assumptions, and believe that all spectrums are inherently flawed to some degree, it's actually quite good!
You'll notice, now, that American politics cleanly fits into the little green circle (which may actually be over-sized for the sake of readability, imho). Inside of it you find the two cliques commonly called "liberals" and "conservatives", and the truth is that it is very difficult to distinguish between the two in many ways. Economically, both of them (if you consider them to be more than one thing to begin with) are virtually identical: all rabid Keynesians. Socially, they are also quite identical. While their views on particular issues (e.g., abortion, education, religion, sex, foreign policy) may differ, they still tend towards the same Y-axis position because of their views on the role of government and state power. Both tend to wield the state as a weapon, in matters of policy, against the other, making them two peas in a pod despite any policy differences!
But wait a minute... Who is this "crazy" Ron Paul guy, way to the right and south?! I'll tell you. He's an "OG Republican", lol, one who actually respects the views of our founding fathers and the original platform of the party. As a libertarian, he ranks in the lower hemisphere of the spectrum -- because he truly believes in small, limited government and the maximization of individual liberty. As an Austrian economist and hardcore "free enterprise" guy, in stark contrast to mainstream Keynesian politicians, he is a good ways to the right (more right than any other candidate). If you understand libertariansim, and free market economics (and especially if you understand Austrian economics), then you understand why this is so. All Republicans should love this guy. But far too many of us have been led astray and melded into the flock of "mainstream sheepism".
Again, "left" and "right" terminology only apply to economics... But, I'll still take a stab at this... Ron Paul thinks/knows that Islamic terrorists were responsible for 9/11, so I'm not sure what you're talking about. Pretty much everyone, save the "conspiracy nutters" and "Bush-did-it nutters", knows this. Ron Paul only differs here in one respect: he actually knows and fully understands why they attacked us. The terrorists did not attack because America is "free and prosperous"... they attacked because of our foreign policy! They attacked because of the things we have done to the middle east and the arabs... Let's take a hypothetical look at this:
Let's say China marches into North America, and we lack the strength to fight them. They set up military bases all over the continent, and coerce us into granting them large bases on our own soil. Then they take away the entire western US, and establish a new nation there, on American soil, called "New Asia". It becomes the new homeland for radical, America-hating Marxists. China pumps tons of money and weapons into New Asia, and the New Asians begin attacking us! They use their military, special forces and intelligence agencies to cross our borders, murder American men, women and children and they don't stop there. They declare open war on us and, supported by China, they seize even more American soil and annex it. Meanwhile, China is pumping more money into covert terror campaigns against our people. We fight back, in what ways we can, and resort to terrorism ourselves, but we're simply outmatched. China begins "sanctioning" us to death: they tell us what military equipment we're allowed to have, what weapons we can produce, how many men we can have, blah blah blah... They also control our scientific research; for example, they boss us around about what types of energy we're allowed to use, and ban nuclear energy research. Then we break one of the millions of Chinese sanctions (oops), and they invade us, kill millions more of our people, and stage a full-scale military occupation of our soil. Over the years they rape our country of its natural resources, funneling our timber, crops, oil, coal, metal and other materials out of America and into Asia. They stomp on our age-old traditions, culture and religious values as well. Wait a minute... Are we pissed at China yet? Are we ready to fight back by whatever means necessary? Might we want to make "the destruction of New Asia" an official state policy? Develop new WMDs for bargaining chips? Might some of us become "freedom fighters" (or "terrorists", as the Chinese call us)? Would we fight back with IEDs, car bombs, and even suicide bombing if that's what it takes?
Yes, I think Americans would do all of the above. I know I would do my part in pushing the foreign invaders off our soil. And that is precisely how the Arab people feel about US foreign policy and Israel. I hope that example helps you see things from their point of view. This does not at all justify the murder of innocent civilians, like the 9/11 attacks, but can you not see why they were moved to do such a thing? To willingly kill themselves just to bloody our nose? If you can understand that, then you're probably starting to understand foreign policy a lot better.
It troubles me that his foreign policy troubles you. First of all, the US military is far weaker than it seems... and not for a lack of men, weapons or technology. We are logistically and strategically hyper-extended all throughout the world. We are incapable of defending ourselves from a forceful and well-organized assault. Sensible military experts, analysts and generals agree. We're scattered all about on "world police" and "nation builder" missions, playing in other people's sandboxes. We could not hope to fight a modern version of WWII today; we would be steamrollered off our own soil because of our countless foreign escapades and "holy war" adventures. Secondly, Ron Paul is not a pacifist or "push-over". He believes in strong national defense, and using our military at need (which any legitimate candidate should). However, he is against war mongering and using foreign policy to bully other countries (and intentionally start fights from which we stand to make an imperial gain/profit). He is also not an imperialist. That is not what America is about. America is supposed to be a peace-loving nation, and the Republican party is supposed to be a peace-loving party. The Democrats are supposed to be the war mongers and international imperialists, not us! But is there something else that troubles you? Tell me, my friend! And if it's anything to do with Iran, I must respectfully ask you to prepare to have your arguments "steamrollered", and your war drums will be confiscated!
We're getting there... But voting for Ron Paul is not choosing "the lesser of two evils"... Oh No! For a change, you'd actually be voting for a decent candidate! :idea:
