Why is it despite the failure of the Soviet Union, leftwing Politics is still popular

Really? So it's your contention that you know more about my beliefs than I do? Because that implies some serious and unfounded arrogance on your part.

I'm not talking about liberalism, I'm talking about leftism. They're not the same. Liberals think your master ought to be restrained from beating you while he rapes you; leftists object to you having a master at all. Leftists are socialists, anarchists, left-communists, syndicalists, etc. That's not liberalism. Liberals are merely state capitalists who support social welfare and limited non-disruptive freedoms (like gay people being entitled to marriage, and such).

Rail against liberals all you want; they aren't leftists.

 

Frisky was right. I elaborated what liberals believe in and why conservatives are our deadly enemies who want to roll back time and look to a feudal, or a lawless past. Your characterization of liberals were typical lies. It is conservatives in the USA who are now anti capitalist, protectionist and isolationist. It suits conservatives to smear and lie about what liberals believe and to pretend we are socialists so they don't have to face up to debating ideas and can just sloganize to their heart's content.

 

Sorry frodly my spellchecker changed your name to frisky!

 

Unfortunate for you that your choices always lead to failure. That is the problem with the left. All of your ideals ignore human nature. Capitalism does not and that is why it has been a spectacular success. What people like you want is equality in misery.

 

Unfortunately for you your choices always lead to failure. That is the problem with the right. It's why our country is failing today.

Anarchism is the only political philosophy in line with actual human behavior. Anyone talking about "human nature" is wrong, because there is no such thing.

Capitalism only works when the state appropriates the capital and forces people to use it in a certain way. The only type of capitalism that has "worked" for even a few has been state capitalism.

What people like you want is misery in inequality.

 

Our country is in the shape it is in today because of a direct result of progressive ideology. Crony capitalism is a direct result of the bloated government that progressives fought for.

I love the talk that there is no such thing as human nature and the Utopian belief that people will just toe some imaginary line yet men much smarter and well read than you knew otherwise which resulted in our constitution which was the first of it's kind in the world that gave the power to the people instead of government.

Whether you like it or not, the only way even this constitution can be successful is if the electorate is moral and educated. Since this country was founded to be somewhere between the left and right, in other words, giving it a chance of success, people like you have been pulling it to the left and towards failure for quite some time.

By the way, giving people a chance at success instead of insuring no one can succeed, which your ideology guarantees, is not a bad thing.

 

It's a direct result of capitalism, period. It's the only way that capitalism has ever "worked", for even the very wealthy.

Can you demonstrate a human nature? I mean, if the concept is so self-evident, surely you can show some of these supposedly intelligent people demonstrating that it exists? Because let me say I'm very well versed in philosophy and especially political philosophy, and no one--let me repeat that, no one--has ever actually demonstrated that such a thing exists. There are plenty of philosophers who assert that there is a human nature, but none of them have ever been able to actually demonstrate that with evidence and sound logic. And even if you can demonstrate that it exists, what evidence do you have that it conflicts with anarchism? After all, humans practiced anarchism far longer than feudalism, capitalism, etc.

Why is this so? Because human beings are all individuals, even as they are also part of groups. That individuality destroys even the possibility of a "human nature."

Moreover, anarchism doesn't rely on invisible lines or innate morality, it relies on social feedback. Other people can tell you when you've crossed the line. This is a much more reliable mechanism for social control than codified laws or the nonexistent "human nature". The fact that you recognize an anarchist society as a utopian society is itself evidence that this proposal does not conflict with "human nature". If it's something you consider ideal, how could it be opposed to your nature, assuming that you had one?

The founders were not particularly intelligent. Quite self-centered and very power-oriented, but that's not the same thing as exceptionally brilliant. They worked through a political process and arrived at a compromise like all other great feats of political organization. It wasn't their innate talent that led to the constitution; it was the whole of the committee acting together to produce a document that they could sell to an unwilling public.

Remember; most people in the United States didn't want the Constitution at the time. It only passed because elites saw no reason to listen to the people, and since they were the only ones who could vote, the framers only needed to bring other elites on board. It's why we've had to spend centuries fixing problems in the constitution, like slavery, extremely limited suffrage, and undemocratic representation.

Which is a far more idealistic utopian vision than the anarchist solution to the problem. Anarchism doesn't require innate morality, just self-interest and social feedback; a just and fair society under the constitution does require innate morality, because it has nothing in it to prevent people from being immoral.

Typical elitist bull(*)(*)(*)(*). Do you like the right to vote? Do you like having representatives who listen to the people? Do you like having the right to free speech? Do you like having a right to privacy? Because all of these things are products of the left. That's the "leftism" you're blaming for the failure of the United States.

The United States was doing pretty well when it was on a trajectory towards leftist politics. Only in the last thirty or fourty years, as it has shifted hard back towards right-wing politics has it started to suffer.

Giving people a chance to succeed by preventing others from succeeding is a bad thing, and that's what your system does. How you can describe freedom as a barrier to individual success, I don't know.

 

The Soviet Union was state capitalism, more like the government being the CEO over a GIANT corporation that was extremely centralized and gave special favors to the people in positions of power. Sounds familiar...

 

Some things are simple some complex. One thing that is both complex and simple are individuals. That said, there are some very strong constants in human nature. One of them is that if you do not expect much from people, they will give you what you expect. It is easiest to see in raising children. That is a fundamental constant in humans no matter the culture. If you don't understand human nature, I suggest you not have children.

For people to tell you that you have crossed a line, they would have to all agree on what that line is. Social control cannot exist in an anarchist society since there will be no common ground. Utopian beliefs like yours ignore human nature altogether.

Really, the founders were not that particularly intelligent? I would bet they were better read than you are. I see that you have fallen victim of recent liberal revisionism of history. You claim to be well versed in philosophy. Where do you think they got their ideas for a nation from? Thin air? They were well versed on philosophy and the history of things like Roman law and English law. Even though there were fundamental disagreements among the founders, they were intelligent enough to understand that they had to compromise to create one of the most radical documents of the time.

The constitution is such a fantastic document that it enabled the people to be able to fix things like slavery and women's rights, yet you disparage the document instead of the realities of the time.

Herein lies the core of Utopian ideology. Fairness. The founders understood that there was no such thing as fairness and that you could not force fairness by legislative decree, especially when that pertained to centralized power. They also realized that no government could prevent people from being immoral so understood that religious teachings, which are replete with morality, were necessary, no matter the religion. In fact, there was no real separation of church and State other than limiting government creating a State religion because the founders, whether institutionally religious or not, particularly Franklin, still recognized the importance of believing in a Creator.

These rights were the products classical liberals that did not believe in anarchy in any form. The US has been on the trajectory of left politics for about 100 years now starting with Woodrow Wilson and you can see where that has led us. In the last couple of decades the republican party has shifted toward the left thinking it would garner them more votes but many of us have been pointing out the failure in that thinking. Your belief that it has shifted radically right only means we have been successful bring it back to it's roots.

By dampening the entrepreneurial spirit, again ignoring human nature, will lead only to malaise and failure. If you think that people work solely for other people then you are just fooling yourself. If that were the case, Buffet would turn over his vast fortune to the State for redistribution.

You are very naive about human nature to the extent you don't believe it exists. You do so dooming yourself to failure of understanding what goes on around you. Your beliefs are Utopian in nature and will fail as all Utopian dreams have in the past. It is time you start studying people like John Adams, the mind behind the constitution, instead of spewing the propaganda you learned in college.

 

The electorate is never educated. Now that is a true fantasy to believe millions of people will have knowledge and wisdom on the same set of events to form a intelligent choice.

Although that fantasy is tried every few years with elections. Although in the end, the policies are ignored for a grand popularity contest.

 

Calling every dictatorship The Soviet Union is not appropriate. The USSR was just one form totalitarianism.
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Until nations fall from the Global depression and austerity and these Nations go belly up,as the "share holders 'must survive at the expense of society existing.

hello newsflash ,the period of Social reform to placate the working class is over finished in 2008.GFC ,remember that GFC mk1 ,well I have bad news ,in Gt Britian you can finance a mortage on 5% down ,95% credit .Unsecured housing loans AGAIN ,seems property speculation is all capitialism has left.

do you think that may cause a few future hiccups?

One would think they would have learned from the crisis that bought the USa to its knees ,but no its about keeping the capitialists in wealth not about rational thinking.

i highly suggest you stop with your Faith in market economy guess what it dosen't work ,and on top the US stockmarket has gone past 13 000 goody the collapse is about to happen ,GFC mk2.

Please step away from the Social democratic social reformist model ,uh ,capitialism can't afford it anymore.french capitialism least of all.

Ah der,what is going to happen WHEN not IF ,WHEN the en tire EU economy goes belly up ,Newsflash ,PIGS don't fly.

BTW,social polarisation means centrist sit on the fence middle class crap Politics is finished ,Reform gives way to Revolution and Reaction becomes Fascism,and stupid Post-modernist Constructionism becomes inane.without social base as capitialism tears the middle class to shreads.

 

Your total ignorance of modern politics since 1850's is astonding ,that be as it may ,what will it take a full blown Fascist movement and WW3.

The peasantry dosen't exist in the 'Western world nations '3 classes comprise the modern advanced Nations ,they are the Capitialist class ,middle class ,and the working class.

And as far as you calling anyone retarded ,a bit of self description is in order.

I blame your religious instruction for your retardation. wrong again .

The truth is that Socialism \Communism Internationalism is not the same as Stalinism and Nationalism .

what didn't work in the USSR ,was trying to build socialism in a single Country,has to be global or nothing .

 

Though I disagree with you about not having any faith in a market economy which would work without the aggressive borrowing policies enabled by the Fed I think your post is a good one. This is a world debt crisis and there is no where else to go but print money and inflation or collapse.

 

There's your first failure right there.

It's like saying Mussalini's Italy (fascism) is the ultimate expression of right wing political activism.

 

There are many progressives here who would agree with the above statement.

 

Thats because those evil progressives know the truth and aren't afraid of it.
Come on back to the real world man, it's not scary.

 

Only simple minded people on the right believe markets are perfect. However, they ARE preferable to any other form of distributing goods, resources, labor, etc. They are flawed, but planned economies are so extraordinarily inefficient, that only people who are completely devoid of economic understanding support them!!

 

I mainly blame the education system and the very stupid people it creates, modern western education is very anti-intellectual and it does not teach the students to think logically.

 

Uh, reading and writing is a huge step forward in human civilization.

 

Would that explain a thread where a person claims that soviet style socialism is still popular, even though that couldn't possibly be much further from the truth? Does that explain why so many right wingers fundamentally misunderstand the term socialism? Does it explain why so many right wingers are nearly entirely capable of complex and nuanced thinking? I don't think it is that simple. You can educate people all you like, but closed minded people of limited intelligence can only learn so much!!

 

No, talk to anyone that experienced the coming of the Soviet Union and they will confirm that socialism was the cornerstone to communism. Part and parcel.

 

You are again just throwing around terms you don't understand. The Soviet Union could be accurately called Soviet Socialism, Revolutionary socialism, or many other things. Communism is just a misnomer. I understand it is widely used, and has been for a very long time, but when you say communism, you mean revolutionary socialism. After that point, your post is nonsensical. So in your world socialism is the cornerstone of socialism? They are part and parcel? Ok!! Thanks for the extraordinary insight!!

 

Yet socialism is the cornerstone of communism and what many don't understand is that it is a proven failure in practice. It ignores realism and psychology. It appeals to the young and impressionable but has no avenue of success. Those that experience it eventually understand but only after excruciating pain.

 

What you fail to recognize is that the Communist leadership in the USSR tried to accelerate the stages of Communist philosophy within a very short period of time. It pretty much went from a feudal state, into a brief period of socialism (skipping over a period of heightened industrialism/capitalism) and then straight into the end game of Communism. The Chinese under the rule of Mao Zedong did this in an even shorter period and at the cost of many more lives.

But there were also movements within the Iron Curtain that obviously rejected Soviet hegemony. Czechoslovakia, Yugoslavia, and Poland are great examples of communist/socialist governments that rejected Soviet domination, yet still believed in Marxism.

The USSR was, and has for the most part been universally recognized as the leader in Marxist doctrine. When it collapsed the support in communist governments also collapsed. There are still communist countries today such as China and Vietnam, but they have very much embraced capitalism and have deep trade agreements with the United States. North Korea of course being the exception, but they are an incredibly unique case.

I guess what I'm trying to say is that despite the collapse of the Soviet Union, the belief in Marxism didn't exactly collapse with it. Mostly because there was never always unity amongst the various Communist governments during the cold war. And most viewed the USSR as a bully that was incredibly corrupt and practiced a perverted version of Marxism. A true Communist believes that Communism is a slow process that takes a very long time to achieve. It is not something that can be manufactured overnight but rather a period of human development that is achieved organically.