@@SlickSimulacrum Ironically you seem to have no clue what authoritarian means, either. Authoritarianism isn't mutually exclusive with leftism, neither with democracy. You're probably conflating authoritarianism with totalitarianism.
@@Khalkara The most useful definition of leftism is the abolishment of hierarchies. An authoritarian government is one of the most hierarchal systems you can implement. It's in the name. Your power in society is how much the dictator/party/whatever personally likes you. This by definition cannot be leftist. The political compass version of leftism is not accurate, it's been simplified so you can have a plot to neatly place a huge variety of human thought. Leftism is not a purely economic set of ideologies.
@@Remedy462 I'd compare the left to the scrawny kid with glasses that's constantly whining and correcting people. Which is annoying but preferable to the violent alcoholic that keeps beating the shit out of everyone and harrassing the ladies
@@JohnWittle I would say that you have valid concerns there, but there's a lot of hijacking of the topic by deliberate bad actors too. It's hard to tell who is doing the "false flag" thing, who has gotten caught up with it without totally realizing, and who is showing their true colors. We're seeing what is doubtless a problem, but we're not sure of the full scope of the problem yet.
The Democratic party isn't far left, but at least we have me. 😅 If you consider nationalizing health insurance and making every business into a worker co-op to be far left.
They're somewhere between our centrist Liberal party and right wing Conservative party in Canada. A lot of Americans would consider our centre-leftist New Democratic Party to be radical leftists. what a difference a shift in the Overton window makes!
The greatest trick the devil ever pulled was convincing insecure people that political apathy is somehow a more intellectually rigorous route than actually believing in something
Ahhh yes, the intellectually lazy "Uni party" proponents that can't seem to understand something as simple as court picks make not just a small difference, but a HUGE difference.
@@Remedy462I hear ya. What I have learned to do is find the value of existence that is not dependent on the value, or condition of humanity. I believe there is life beyond this place.
My oldest friend claims he's "independent" and has "a pox on both their houses" attitude...in his little disclaimer before he agrees with far-right positions. So there's another reason people pretend the left and the right the same: They're on the right and want to pretend they're not or persuade liberal friends and family they're not.
Whenever I see someone with "independent" or "critical thinker" in their social media bio, I know they're going to be channeling every single fabricated grievance Newsmax et al. are pushing this week.
Ah yes, the Tim Pool/Dave Rubin school of politics. They often go by "classical liberal" as well. It's so weird, just identify as what you actually are. Be proud and defend your views. Identifying as something else makes you appear ignorant, at best, and duplicitous at worst.
All of my acquaintances who claim to be independent only vote for Republicans. Lol. They hate all of the same things. Everything that is different than them. And they only care about their own tax returns, their own 401k and their own asses.
It’s been 15 or more yrs since I heard someone label themselves as a libertarian and describe themselves as anything but a conservative. Just admit it you like the culture war dumb shit.
@@MichaelDeHaventhey say "facts over feelings" but have big concerns that saying their beliefs will get them called homophobic or racist... when their beliefs are just racist or homophobic... Dx
I tried to have this conversation with some internet peeps once. I told them that failures of socialism are failures, and the failures of fascism are by design. Those things can't be equivalent because we judge ideas based on intentions. Also, the successes of socialism are by far preferable to the successes of fascism.
Exactly. When you hear people on the right warning about the dangers of the left, it's all either moral panic type stuff ("the gays will get to marry your dogs!") or threatening us with a good time ("there will be fewer guns and higher taxes on the rich!!!"). When people on the left warn about the dangers of the right, they talk about actual problems that are affecting people's lives right now that will go unaddressed or made substantially worse.
@@SteveShivesThey love to make the members of LGBT fight among each other too (anyone and anything after the B is not part of the community what more do you waaant ex) same with factions of the left. If lefties stopped wokescolding for a second the right would never be elected unless it goes through a drastic reform aka disbanding.
@@SteveShives Remember the Right's panic of taco trucks on every street corner? To me, that sounds like solid lunch options. To the Right, it is a loss of culture. But it isn't like there are pot roast and cabbage trucks on every street corner now. Maybe the Right has a lot of foodphobes?
@@JoeJohnston-taskboy I would consider taco trucks on every corner as the best self own in history. While I'm chowing down on tacos that I could walk to get.
At the end of the day, "billionaires shouldn't be allowed to exist" and "poor people shouldn't be allowed to survive" are only equally extreme if you secretly think of yourself as a potential billionaire.
It also ignores the fact that we can just tax billionaires until there are no billionaire and nobody dies.. they just end up demoted to millionaire.. that is not as immoral as making all the poor people no longer exist to a person who refuses to believe in wealth redistribution.. they are basically saying we need to get rid of poor people and we can’t do that by giving them all money.. it’s silly to think both sides are immoral or wrong here.. there are basically two options 1) take money from the rich and give some to the poor so we no longer have poor people 2) make poor people stop existing without any wealth redistribution
@@ThatOpalGuyyou can become a millionaire by dismissing all morals. There are lots of different avenues for that. But to become a billionaire, that is a whole other thing. You don't just need no morals, you also either need to have prestige, or a lot of skill in something, and a whole, whole lot of luck.
I think mostly people who equate both parties as being the same (though I could be wrong here) are doing so from the lens of being further to the left of the Democratic party. And even then we recognize the difference on culture war issues, but see a uniparty when it comes to economic ones. Neither party is fighting to stop the flow of money into politics, neither party is passing laws that limit the ability of congress to do insider trading on the stock market. Both parties, at least initially, opposed student debt relief (and a lot of democrats still aren't completely on board) Even our president sided against the unions in the rail worker strike last year when he could have applied that same pressure on the side of the union. So on these types of issues we see little to no difference between the parties.
Realistically it's not about the stance. The democrats and Republicans are the same in the fact that they both benefit off of society being in a state of needing fixed, and will never actually do anything that makes society better because they want to maintain their power.
I'm a Centrist and that doesnt fit. In our current climate many Democrats are further to the right than most true Centrists. So a lot of true Centrists look like Democrats right now. We tend to lie along the Y-axis of the spectrum and often along the X-axis too. We believe in a balance and equal rights for all. (So treat everyone kindly.) We don't like big swings to either side. We like regulation within reason but can't stand authoritarianism.
The funny thing is that those who identify as centrists are really just center right. The right in general calls the center left and beyond as far left
@@rithvikmuthyalapati9754 At this point, the Overton window is pushed so far to the far right that those who call themselves 'centrist' are also pretty far right too (many of them are to the right of Dubya, policy-wise and definitely in terms of social politics).
I don't remember where, but within the last week I saw a video clip of a nationally elected Republican calling Joe Biden a communist. Republican-lite is extreme left in their minds.
Most of what is considered "far left" in the US is considered almost center in other countries anyways. So comparing it with the "far right" is just laughable.
And even in Europe, the "true" far left doesn't go around murdering people, they damage property and stuff, yes, so if you look only at the overall crime statistics there are many far left ones, but almost all of those that end with people in hospitals or graves are far right crimes...
The UKs National Health Service is a right that anyone in the UK can use for free, after National Insurance, that is. National Insurance pays for it, which we all pay. Our conservative government want to bring it down and replace it with corporations charging fees for their service because they think profiteering businesses will strengthen the country. If some Americans think the NHS is a far left policy, then they have been sorely misled. I wish the USA had an NHS, but the pharmaceutical corporations have their tentacles far inside the US government. They would push hard against the idea, and so would conservative politicians and right-wing media.
@@mrpositroniaCorrection: the conservative government don't actually THINK it will strengthen the country, that's just what they say to get enough votes to continue taking from the poor to give to the rich.
@@mrpositronia I haven't heard any of my fellow Americans say that the NHS is far left, but I do hear them say that it's "shit health care," and that if we got Universal Health Care here in the U.S., we'd see declining standards, and everything would go to hell. They claim people from Canada and the U.K. come here for their health care. All of this is bullshit of course, we already have crappy standards here. They forget that great health care in America only happens for you if you have a fat wallet. And anyone traveling from the U.K. or Canada probably has a fat wallet too. The rest of us are struggling by with no dental or vision care because they're not included with our insurance. Do everything necessary to maintain and strengthen the NHS.
@@sharimeline3077 In fairness to the people pushing that false narrative, they don’t consider you a person if you don’t have a fat wallet, so nobody else counts.
"I'm not saying every right-winger is an authoritarian...but most of them seem completely fine letting the authoritarians run the show." This. SO this.
Strongly disagree, saying "not all right wingers are authoritarian to the same degree" because all of them support Capitalism and Capitalism needs authoritarianism to work and thrive.
@@eleSDSUcharitability is good optics to some, net positive so long as it's in areas that dont actually benefit the authoritarians any more than they already have
@@maudley charitability might be good optics sometimes but anything that gives power to authoritarians will come back to haunt us when they inevitably stand against us and in favor of the power structures that keep most people oppressed, as history has taught us again and again. Those who don't learn from history are doomed to repeat it; for a thoroughly documented example of this I'd suggest reading about the 1973 Civic-Military fascist coup in Chile and how that type of charitability has resulted on complete fascist control of the state for the past 50 years that has only been possible with the unwavering support of Liberals. In other words, please don't be charitable be realistic.
I'm reminded of a slightly more nuanced scenario where Sam Seder was asked if he would not refuse out of principle to vote for candidate who plans to open two concentration camps, over his opponent who says he'd like four; because Sam himself is, of course, opposed to any concentration camps. He said no, that he would vote for the first candidate. Because "bad things are objectively better than worse things."
Ah yes, but you see in the past, people who promised to do good things ended up doing bad things. So that means that people who aim to do good things are just as bad as people who do bad things.
One side wants to feed children and make sure they get health care. The other side wants to send them to work in factories and marry them off as 12 year olds. That tells people everything they need to know about them.
Up until recently people would say that what you just said was just nonsense but I kid you not, Governor Huckabee Sanders is actually proposing loosening labor laws for minors to work hard labor. And on the other hand Governor Walz signed laws for free lunch for all, loan forgiveness programs for nurses and requires workplace safety action plans … ya know things that benefit us regular people. Gee which one do I prefer?
@@sassenachdragon Yeah, all the crazy, exaggerated parody is true now. Reality has thrown away it's meds and is wandering around with plastic bags on it's feet and a sweater for pants. Actual, elected members of Government are publicly claiming "The Jews" are using lasers to set California on fire, and a Presidential candidate's followers stormed the Capital. If you woke up from a coma and someone told you that, you'd nope right back to sleep.
This is something that I realized as a young child when trying to figure out where I stood politically: I compared the extremes. Extreme Left= eco/animal rights-activists. Extreme Right= Literal Nazis. One side is driven by compassion, the other by hate & evil. Pretty simple when you think about it.
As a retired Army soldier and small business owner that was raised on traditional “American” values that grew up in the South, I wholeheartedly agree with your video. The Republican Ideology as currently offered is so terrible that I consider Ronald Reagan to be a moderate who wouldn’t be able to bring a candle to the whirlwind that is Maga. No thanks. I also don’t like every idea the left pushes, but I can live with most of what they offer. Watching the Republican’s dismantle public education in Florida is insidious and terrible to understand and yet that is exactly what they are doing.
Agreed, Reagan was moderate in comparison to the MAGA movement. But, ironically, his administration started the changes in our society that eventually made the MAGA movement possible.
Reagan let the AIDS virus rage while he thought it was just killing queer people. He let it happen to his own "friend," Rock Hudson. May he rest in piss.
I also feel that way about libertarians. When someone tells me they are a libertarian, I think, "So, you're a republican but you want to feel special?"
@@Remedy462 - I categorize them as "embarrassed Republicans". They agree with Republicans, they vote for Republicans, and they believe all the fearmongering the Republicans put out, but the also know that Republicans are socially viewed as morons, and that the party is an abject embarrassment to the country, so they waffle around a bit being noncommittal, looking for any reason to praise the right or criticize the left.
Some people just want to avoid conflict. My family consists of 1 far right, 1 right, me on the left, and a moderate peacekeeper who says "both sides are the same".
I am a Democrat because my father, who was a union man, went on a snowy Saturday afternoon in Iowa in 1974 to hear a speaker at a union smoker. Only 5 of us, that snowy day, came to hear a speech from a man named Jimmy Carter. Instead of standing up on the stage and lecturing us, he had us arrange chairs in a circle, sat with us, and chatted and answered questions. I was not able to vote, but he went out of his way to ask me if I had any questions. This was about a year before the Iowa caucus and the Presidential race to determine the Democratic candidate for president. It was more than that he was charming and likeable, he was kind. He said to the group something along the lines of Nixon (who had resigned from office) was the reason why we couldn't allow government to fall into the hands of people who wanted to abuse power but should vote for people who wanted to serve the people. That's why I am a Democrat. I fairly consider the candidates, locally and nationally, but no one represents my political and social views better than the Democrats. Maybe someday another party will come along who better represent my beliefs, but until then, I'm a Democrat.
Jimmy Carter is a great example of a good person. He dropped his Farm so as to not appear w/ a conflict of interest. And he spend his after presidency giving back, using his influence for good.
Dontcha know men of god grab women by their hoo haas and have enriched relations with Russian Dictators... Everyone knows that... Honesty is a libtard ideal!
It's really quite simple: The Far Left wants everyone to be treated equally, and the Far Right wants to exclude many groups of people from having equal right. The most basic way to put it: The Left includes, the Right excludes excludes.
The overall phrase I live by is "I support what is beneficial for society as a whole", so stricter gun control so children aren't dying to school shootings everyday, taxing the rich so everyone can have universal healthcare, functioning public transport, unemployment benefits, social security, etc. I don't give a damn about the 5 rich people who are holding back the rest of society because if we had services that benefited the average folk then the rich would be slightly less rich. The rich people with more money than they could possibly spend in a thousand lifetimes need to be an afterthought to the 99% of us trying to live actual lives.
It's way simpler than that. The far left wants everyone to be treated fairly. The far right wants that too...but their definition of "everyone" is terrifyingly narrow.
One of the biggest issues I've had as a leftist is in fighting. I've frequently said "the left will eat itself before it accomplishes anything." Or as Rhetoric says in Disco Elysium: "Complaining about other communists is one of the most important parts of being a communist."
Generally because enforcing accountability is often a big goal of many leftists - if you can't do something without hurting people then you shouldn't do it at all On the right, self accountability is proclaimed as something that people should do and group enforced accountability should be abolished, but then it's never actually followed through on. So when the right does accomplish something, they've done in it because they have been able to get away with it with no oversight. And the consequences are almost always harmful to someone underprivileged That being said, online, there is a lot of talk of action and talk of accountability but nothing actually happens. Being online is a tar pit for leftists regardless. You can't accomplish much material good exclusively online, the internet has evolved to be a flytrap for energy that could be put into irl leftist activism.
That in fighting is because very few leftists are communists. Most of us are socialists or democratic socialists. Theres some overlap but mostly we are a far greater spectrum.
An inevitable outcome of tolerating other people of different backgrounds, cultures, and political views is that disagreement will occur. The Right has an easier time uniting for a single cause, because they have so little tolerance for nonconformity. Unfortunate but true. Though I would rather have a messy Left, that tries to make things better, than a unified Right that causes suffering for all but the select "in" group.
"How to fairly serve everyone's interests" is just an inherently far more logistically complex goal than "how to serve myself." It takes a lot of energy to flesh out and while the online discourse feels like wasted effort, it's one of the greatest contributors to meaningful social evolution. Every other one has someone's thumb on the scale if not a whole bunch of missing seats at the table. Real progress can only be built on true, equitable consensus. Every time the left eats itself, the meal is a little more digested. Conversely, self-interest will always seem way more organized (House?) but only _before_ success (ah, House). Individualism is infinitely divisible, and from a position of success selfishness will always dictate dividing the spoils among the smallest group possible. The left endlessly faces and seeks to resolve its differences, and the right just promises to worry about the accounting after the heist, with each person eyeing what _they_ deem their cut of the booty. The relationship between left, center, and right is akin to research, development, and marketing, or academics, manufacturing, and consumption. It may seem like development/manufacturing is where all the real work gets done, but without the other two creating possibility and dictating purpose it doesn't exist. That makes it seem like the right is a necessary evil, and I think that might even be true. It doesn't, however, mean it has to be the unregulated rotting midden heap America calls the right. My Americanized version of this analogy didn't have consumption - it had piracy.
@@hexzylethe internet is useful for galvanising the left. It brings the left together and helps grow the movement. However most of the people who grow those audiences don't do anything with it. A lot advocate against voting, and don't even mention most of the shit that you can do except protesting. However when these audiences are engaged in action, they can do serious fucking work. Whether you love or hate him, Vaush has done this with phone banking. He got his audience out in droves to do phone banking for the democratic party, if I remember correctly for local elections, getting a large enough chunk of his audience to participate such that it had a real influence on IRL politics. The exact same can be said for destiny and his efforts in canvassing IRL. It can be done, the people with the influence just have to act.
For now, at least. Obviously if we had a Stalinist problem in place of fascists, this would change. Anyways, can we have some more democratic socialism? That would be nice
Same. At this point I'd have to change myself to someone I never was in order to be accepted by alot of those same people I grew up with. Beliefs we shared are now "liberal" and politically incorrect in those circles.
Far Left: the status quo is cruel and unfair. We need change. Far Right: the status quo is terrifying. We need to go back to an imaginary past where everything was perfect. Far right is only good for the people who believe that they would be on top in the imaginary past. Centrism and moderation are only good for people who think they are pretty much on top now. It’s not a difficult choice.
There are twin boys, "Far Right" and "Far Left". It's their birthday. They have a cake. Far Right wants the cake all to himself. Every crumb. Far Left wants to share the cake equally between the two of them. The boys' parents decide to share the cake between them. Far Right throws a tantrum about how Far Left is getting what he wants and how Far Right never gets ANYTHING.
Most people are moderate though. Past experiences with far-left governments almost always ended up in authoritarianism at best and dictatorship at worst. Dissent is heavily frown upon. While I abhor the far-right I don't have any romantic notions regarding the far-left.
@@soundscape26 you think any of those 'communist' countries were actually communist? we havent had a proper communist country on the planet yet. its just been a lie to install an authoritarian dictator everywhere so far. the whole point of communism is there is no single leader.
@@soundscape26 Something to keep in mind, the vast majority of far left governments have historically been products of violence. Mao, the USSR, North Vietnam were all indeed authoritarian in nature, but why is that? its not like that happened in a vacuum, every single one of those examples were last man standing on their side of the spectrum because all the sane options were purged long before by the traditional, right wing governments.
@@soundscape26But again, the Left gets there as a corruption or failure of the system. The Right goes there intentionally. The Nazis did *exactly* what they were intended to. The USSR lied to its people, and power was seized by violent means so it could be used to Stalin's benefit. These aren't the same.
Both sides try to force their views on everyone else, but there’s a difference: the left tries to force everyone to have respect, appreciation and tolerance for others, while the right tries to force everyone to have respect, appreciation and tolerance for the right.
The left wants everyone to be kind, environmentally sound, thoughtful, gentle and patient with children, respectful of women, educated on the true history of the founding of this nation & girded against racism and bigotry, free to marry who they wish, free to not marry if they wish, and to have a healthy, prosperous and fulfilling life. The right just wants everyone to be slaves while killing each other.
If your idea of "force" is the Left giving you a stern talking to or a disapproving side-glance because you said something politically incorrect, you have truly lived a blessed life. Authoritarians undermine elections, impose martial law, take away your rights, send dissenters to internment camps. Being "cancelled" for 24 hours is not "force".
"Both sides are too extreme."🤨 Well one side isn't trying to kill off my community for wanting to live their lives and are willing to work with literal nazis, I'll vote for that side.
@@adamherne2348 how are those two remotely comparable? One side saying you're bad and the other killing you are comparable how? I need Tylenol for this.
@@adamherne2348 That may sometimes be the case, some groups get so accustomed to conflict with everyone outside their in-group that they tend to become broadly hostile, but then so what? Why do you care whether or not some particular group likes you? Like, it would be easy to doubt your statement and ask what you disagree with about them that leads to them calling you a 'bad guy', but like, I get labeled that way by people who are generally much closer to me in political alignment than you likely are, and it doesn't affect me because I'm an adult and accept that everyone isn't always going to come to a consensus on things, and that sometimes people just don't like you, and it doesn't MEAN anything. Maybe you need to try growing the fuck up a bit if you're not able to handle someone labeling you as part of their out-group?
I spent most of my life believing in the false equivalency that both parties were equally bad in different way. It wasn't entirely out of ignorance, it was because in the few elections I ever paid attention to, I never found a candidate that was good on all the issues I cared about, I always ended up settling for the lesser of two "evils". For most of my life I thought this made me "centrist" stuck between extremes, what I didn't realize until only the last few years ago is that I was actually a full-on leftist stuck on the sidelines of a system that stops at the center. That was when I finally realized that while I had never fully supported a Democrat, I had always been opposed to their Republican opposition. I'm no activist, I don't have any clue how we get from the current system to one that if not better is at least more fairly balanced. What I do know is that despite the screeching of Republicans, the Democrats are not leftists. Those of us on the actual left, we don't have any representation in this country's government, and we aren't likely to get representation any time soon. I still vote blue no matter who, not because I think the Democrats will do anything to improve the situation, but better dead than red... because if the Republican ever got all the power they crave, dead is probably what people like me and those I care about would be.
One way we could get away from our current system is getting rid of first-past-the-post voting for something like ranked choice voting. Our current system naturally lead to a two party system.
This!!!! I vote Blue out of "harm reduction", not because I love the Democrats. In my opinion, most marginalized people don't love Democrats, but the Democrats do not advocate for harm and death and are not actively malicious on purpose. For those on the Right, misery and cruelty are features, not bugs!
The key is for those of us who feel this way to vote in primaries, to get more progressive candidates for the actual elections. Also, make sure all your friends actually vote! Voting in America is designed to be a hassle, especially for young people who aren't already registered, because young people, poor people and non-white people vote progressive.
I dont think it is as dire as some make it out to be. In Biden's first two years the house passed a lot of really progressive legislation. This was held back by literally 2 senators in a 50/50 senate. Those 2 senators also kept the filibuster in play. If those 2 senators were replaced with real Democrats we would have passed a lot more progressive legislation, and the stuff that did pass would have been a lot stronger...I will say it till I can't say it any more...YOU HAVE TO VOTE!!!!
I'm registered as a Republican, but only vote Democrat. When I see parents fighting for their rights to indoctrinate their kids with fake science in lieu of real science, it makes me want to vote for the opposite party.
I changed my voter registration from Republican to democrat last election. There isn’t anything the republicans offer that I see as good for society now a days. I am to the left of the democrats now. The Overton window has been pulled backwards 80 years since Trump so I guess that makes me a progressive now that I want to go back to where we were before Regan.. now a days they claim pre Regan era politics is a social democrat or something.. according to the right wingers it’s communism.
There's one thing I'd add about private authority and accountability. The right makes the point that you can vote with your wallet but then things become monopolies and you're forced to go by their terms or go without.
At the same time the right-wingers will bitch and moan when the left votes with their wallets and claim it's 'cancel culture' or some other nonsense when we don't buy what they think we should.
The fact that the carried interest loophole still exists for hedge fund billionaires who have destroyed more jobs and good companies is all the evidence that you need.
The problem with any system where people vote with their wallet is that the people with the fattest wallet get the most votes and will use those votes to make their wallet even fatter.
I remember going into Communist forums back in the 2015/2016 period, along with venturing into the Libertarian/Conservative forums, there was no comparison; the most hardcore Communists took homelessness, healthcare, food insecurity, and political corruption; the Right however, they disliked the homeless, scapegoated minorities, and advocated for Fascism without saying the term.
When I was younger, back in the early 1960's, I remember my parents telling us that they voted Democrat because the Republicans caused unemployment to go up and there were more jobs under the Democrats. I've seen it myself that the Right likes to make the people be more desperate, so we'd accept lower pay and worse working conditions.
the right = oligarch/corporation/royal power the left = power to the workers/masses the centre = basically the right with a smile on their faces and not quite so nasty/slightly more reasonable.
Well said. It needs to be followed up with a piece that describes the world we leftists want. Which is presumably a world that's at least heading in the general direction of the Star Trek future. And how the things we believe in can get us there.
I think a big part of what led me down the path to socialism was the first tome I learned technological progress and automation could actually negatively impact people in some circumstances. That automation meant people losing their jobs and livelihoods instead of just having more free time. That struck me as a pretty clear sign the system was broken. Work to eat makes sense in a system of extreme scarcity where everyone needs to pitch in to survive the winter, but tying people's ability to eat, sleep indoors, get medical treatment, etc. to holding a job when the job is totally unnecessary is ridiculous. It leaves us either making up countless new jobs just to keep employment up or letting huge swathes of the public die in the street while we have surplus production rotting or collecting dust. At some point we need to re-examine our relationship with labor as our productive capacity reaches near post-scaricty in some sectors. Technological advancement shouldn't be negative for the average worker. The Jetsons promised us a 2 hour work week, damnit!
@@scienceandponies Well said. I am very much against the AI craze going on right now for that reason. AI is being used to remove people's livliehoods by making people's jobs redundant. If AI were actually being used to take jobs and we were given a good living by the government cuz of all the money we would be saving then I would be all for AI taking our job. But AI is being used the wrong way.
@@scienceandponiesdon't be scared of technological progression, be scared of the profit motive. Technological progression in a socialist society just means more free time. But in a capitalist society it means more people going hungry on the street.
Asking "Why're you Okay With the Far Left, But Not the Far Right". Is like asking "If you like something why don't you like it's opposite" or "If you're okay with medicine why cant you tolerate disease". If two people are standing on opposite sides of the planet that does not mean they're in the same location, the answer is not complicated.
"If you're ok with medicine why can't you tolerate disease" is a winner. I dont believe I'll ever have a political debate with another American again, but if I do, this is definitely a quotable closer!
what do you define as extreme left? technically thats communism and anarchism. who is advocating for them now? people just call anything they dont like the far left. trans issues isnt anything to do with the left, let it gets put there by some etc. the left is purely about worker power and not oligarch power. people put too much nonsense on the left.
As a socialist, these are the critiques (practicality-focused) that I find productive and good. Your critique of horseshoe theory and your very reasonable and fair addressing of the USSR and authoritarianism was great as well. Really great work.
@@LadyDoomsingerwell socialism is definitely not impossible. We can discuss communism, but outright claim socialism is impossible is counter productive. Socialism is no less possible than capitalism seemed during fuedalism.
This right here is therapeutic. We need to hear this kind of commentary more in political discourse. There is a contingent in society that is quit simply put, parasitic, the largest portion of which is in the right. It's plain to see for anyone who is intellectually honest that right wing ideology is about maintaining oppressive hierarchical systems that only benefit the most fortunate. It's just not designed to help anyone out accept those that don't need the help. PS: You have a new subscriber. Love your work. 👏👏👏
@@samuelmerkel2888 Depends on how far you go on the left, tbf. You go anywhere past basic conservatism on the right, however, and you get just more and more blatant authoritarianism.
Its in the interests of leftists to stop rightoid reactionaries from coming into power and to do so requires force since rightoids love to use force themselves
As many have already said, what's often called "far left" in this country is center, and simply decent. When I hear certain people like Manchin being called a "centrist Democrat," I want to throw heavy objects at the TV or wherever I'm hearing it. If we do go a bit further LEFT than we have in many years, and if they are successful in getting things done (not constantly blocked by the far right . . .) we'd have Heavier taxes and less loopholes for the wealthiest Americans and big corporations. More regulations of industry to curb monopolies, keep workers and consumers safer, have better environmental policies, etc. Have sane gun laws, banning the most dangerous guns, stronger background checks and waiting periods, and maybe even a requirement to know how to use it correctly and to make sure it's kept safe. Have better social programs, to help people who may fall through the cracks. More equality for everyone, no matter what the ethnic background, race, sexual orientation, gender identity. Make more things public, such as internet, education, and healthcare. Hopefully abolish things like for-profit prisons. Make knowledge and information more available and factual, strengthening school, colleges and libraries and making them more accessible to everyone. Making sure there's no such thing as "too big to fail" businesses. Absolute separation of church and state, though I don't think they'd do things like not allow Christmas decorations in schools and whatnot. Secular people enjoy those too. It would be more about not making LAWS based on a particular religion's beliefs.
As someone who lives at Brazil, a country that recently scaped from a fascist nightmare (but still is being haunted by the far right), I just loved this video.
I feel you, but we aren't really out of the woods yet. The vice-president eagerly wants to legalize slaves here just as they are legal in the USA - with private prisions. And the actual president doesn't seem too keen in stopping him. We're the fourth country in incarcerated population in the WORLD. This is absurdly worrying
From the point of view of a British person. America does not have a left wing party. The Democrats is a sort of centre party with some left wingers and centre right wingers. Then you have the Republicans who are very right wing including wanabee square heads.
From the point of view of a Canadian, I agree with you. The closest the US has every had a successful left wing party was the old Republicans with Lincoln and Teddy Roosevelt and even then it wasn't really left wing
Funny this because labour right now is more right wing than democrats I can say. Joe Manchun would fit right in with labour and not even be the most right wing. Republican are just full on fascists. Democrats are anywhere from centre right joe Manchin to socdem squad. Joe Biden is centre left at this point in time I would say. The things he has done with unions for example.
@@acanadianchickenI would say the democrats have moved to the left in the 21st century and they are more left than they have been for a long time. I would say Biden is more left wing than Trudeau honestly.
As a person on the very far left, I just had to comment on how much I love this video!! I couldn't have said it better!! Thank you, Steve! You're a f*cking genius! 👏👏👏
This reminds me about something I had always thought about which is the difference between someone supporting fascism and someone supporting communism. Both are extreme idealogues that I don’t support but there’s a big difference between the two. Fascism is an inherently racist ideology and communism isn’t.
no country has ever been communist anyway. they always end up with a dictator which is the antithesis of what communism is. then they get used as why communism is bad. arghhh
Fascism is an inherently *authoritarian* ideology - communism is not. When a communist state becomes authoritarian, it's because something went wrong; when a fascist state goes authoritarian it's running as intended.
Preach it! I had an exchange about the national debt and it's unprecedented size and growth on the book of faces recently, where I complained that the GOP was complete hypocrites on fiscal responsibility and one of my old high school friends said "kind of one-sided aren't you?" And I said, yeah, there is one side that talks a big game about how our debt is such a terrible thing and then the one time they could have reduced it, they instead decided to cut taxes. I may not agree with how much the Democrats like to spend, but at least the things they want to spend money on actually help people. The Republicans pretend to care about the deficit and debt, but it's only in service to their real agenda, tax cuts for rich people.
Omg I was like what's the "book of faces" is that a new one coming out since Musk ruined Twitter? Why haven't I heard of this "book of faces"? Lol sorry blonde moment
I SO wish people would realize this. Conservatives spend just as much. The only difference is that when the "left" spends, working class people get things. When the right spends, we somehow end up with less. Either way there's spending but one side spends on families. The other gives the money directly to other rich effers.
Hi Steve. Thanks for your insights regarding a very delicate matter. I lived in Argentina as a pre-teen a teenager years and growing up in a military far right government was absolutely terrifying. People were abducted and murdered just because they were MUSICIANS, where having a beard or long hair was enough cause for getting arrested, beat up and throw into a mass grave. No constitution. They have this thing called "Proceso de reorganización nacional" (national reorganization process, a guideline to murder and hate) and it was put there in schools and work places and it was all by DESIGN. The consequences are still reverberating and to this day i can't go back there with feeling either safe or in peace. I'm spirituality exiled. And recent developments have just reaffirmed my very firm decision not to go back. EVER. Far right is a venom and when it sets, it stays. I'm 100% with you. I really hope that free thinking spirits can, in time, drain that poison from the minds and souls of all humanity. In memory of the 35000 (just in a few years, many many friends and families of them) dead from that ugly ideology. Love will prevail, if we love
Thanks for sharing that. I'm an American and live in an region dominated by Republicans. I really don't think "conservative" America recognizes the harmful, violent, extreme behavior that "normal" people are capable of committing. The de-humanization of the "other" starts one down a very dangerous path.
Dang, it's a good thing no country has killed even more people using far left ideologies. Wait a second................it's almost like evil people can exist on both sides. No, that can't be right.
When I went for my gun licence in Alberta (strictly for museum handling purposes) the instructor was a self-professed libertarian who used the class as a platform for his, well, unique views. For example, he said we had "too many laws"-to which I thought, how do you judge that? How many is too many? Is there a number to attach to that? Aren't most laws the result of someone doing something that common sense would suggest not doing? And shouldn't a weapon, a machine designed specifically to kill, be highly regulated? Guns didn't originate for sport, after all. His other beef was that pistols were more regulated than long guns, despite not having the stopping power of a rifle or shotgun. He just couldn't understand this, and considered it an example of liberal irrationalism and government intrusion. But I thought, well, crimes are easier to commit with a concealed weapon, obviously, how could he not see that? Needless to say I just kept my thoughts to myself.
The characteristic difference between the American Left Voter and the American Right Voter can be summarized in how they think a homeless person should get access to shelter. I’ve never met a leftist who didn’t think there should be systemic assistance for homeless people and I’ve never met a righty who didn’t think the homeless person should work their way out of poverty. At the end of the day, which ‘side’ do you think comes across as more empathetic?
I know this language is a little harsh, but i once heard "you can't argue with a stupid person, they will bring you down to their level and beat you with experience." This is how i feel talking to far right wingers 😢
Innuendo Studios had a wonderful series on the subject. I think the core of the issue is the fact that conservative and right-wing ideologies all subscribe to the idea that societies should look more or less like pyramids while preferred model of society in a left-wing worldview looks like a pancake.
I think many leftists who aren't authoritarian or anarchist want like, a very democratic pyramid (just in terms of leadership) in which the leaders are also held accountable and can be removed when necessary. Big societies need some people making sure the right amount of resources are made and distributed well.
This guy gets it! It always amazes me how much people who whine about freedom and rights can’t stand seeing other people expressing their freedom or exercising their rights.
I get annoyed when people claim "they're all as bad as each other" in relation to politicians. No, they're not & claiming they are let's the really shitty ones away with too much
People are well within their rights to be chronically frustrated with the Democratic Party, but the politician who sheepishly or shoves you aside is still different from the politician who fantasizes about your suffering and has thus made it a major feature of their political platform.
Well, the Far Left want universal healthcare and a higher minimum wage, whereas the Far Right contains literal, _actual_ Nazis. It's "we want to treat humans with dignity" VS "we want to pin the blame on minorities and then kill them." That's not even a choice, that's a test to see if you're evil.
@@tezman201 @purple_kathryn Ever heard of Gore Vidal, Eugene Debs, Hunter S. Thompson, or Henry Wallace? You guys think they were lazy folks who didn't follow politics? There are literally hundreds more highly esteemed figures that pointed out the racket that is the corporate duopoly. You feel the way you do because the way you follow politics is to listen to the duopoly's propaganda on MSM, just like Republicans.
Well to be fair they have too, it’s just far far more rare and scarce compared to the overwhelming abundance of right wing violent cults throughout history
Generally (though obviously not universally, *cough* RAF *cough*) when the extreme left gets violent, cars burn and shop windows get smashed in. When the extreme right gets violent, people die.
Imagine if people applied this false equivalency in other areas. "Oh, so you get mad when I point the barrel of the gun at people but someone over there is pointing the stock of the gun at people and you aren't currently criticizing them!"
When I hear people say They are both the same” - think immediately that they do not know anything about modern politics. I know this because I used to say the same thing when I was not paying attention to politics.
For me the difference between the far left and the far right is very simple: One wants to ensure that everyone is given basic human rights and that everyone is allowed to live as their authentic selves and the other wants to commit genocide against those they deem to be lesser than them. Is it any wonder why I support one and not the other?
Playing Devil's Advocate for a second, but as Steve admits, there have been plenty of 'leftist' figures and schools of thought throughout history that have been entirely comfortable with genocide: Stalin, Mao, Pol Pot, three generations (and counting) of the Kim family, to name but a few. Doctrinaire is doctrinaire, no matter which side of the political divide you are on. The US definition of far left politicians (which as a non US citizen I would guess is the likes of Bernie Sanders and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez) are practically centrist by non US standards. I say this as someone who would be considered, by most Americans, to be rabidly left wing (although that is a label I would reject).
But then there are economic models as well... and if you interpret far-left as Communism things won't be so rosy anymore. You can broadly defend what you wrote under social democracy.
@@soundscape26 Authoritarian dictatorships that call themselves 'socialist' or 'communist', are not actually socialist or communist, and thus are not 'far-left'. The only true communism is anarchist communism, since the definition of communism and the definition of anarchism are exactly the same. You could almost say it's redundant to say 'anarchist communist', except that there are so many tendencies among both communism and anarchism that it helps to say 'anarchist communism' just to differentiate oneself from other types of anarchism or communism. But as an anarchist communist, I don't consider any authoritarian regime to be part of the left at all. 'Tankies' (a.k.a. apologists for authoritarian regimes that call themselves 'socialist' and 'communist') are not part of the left, they're red fascists.
Incorrect. I’ve heard directly from a coworker and one of parents the “both sides” way of thinking. Educated, non-troll real people - there are plenty of folks out there who simply aren’t paying attention or actively avoiding how things have changed over the last 15 years or so.
@@TrueYellowDartyeah it's generally this. Many of the "both sides" people I've run into don't actively participate in politics, and claiming "both sides" is their way of feeling smarter than anyone because they feel they've figured out the life hack of political discourse. You'd be hard pressed for them to provide specific examples of how they know both sides are equally bad.
OMG thank you! Been saying this for years but you also have to be "nice" about it so you don't get shut down, asked to the leave etc. Sometimes you do just need to scream this into a microphone for the world to hear, because it is obvious and yes it IS a BIG DEAL!
I’m a gay atheist with an incurable, life-threatening autoimmune disease that I’ve had since childhood. Nearly everything that the far right espouses is a threat to my life and freedom. That’s not hyperbole. I was born in the 1960s and have lived the majority of my life without the same rights as heterosexuals. Gay sex was a CRIME in Texas until 2003. Those laws are actually still in the state’s constitution; they’re just not currently enforceable. A single Supreme Court ruling could change that. The far-right ideas that the poor don’t deserve affordable healthcare, that sick people don’t deserve protection, and that for-profit healthcare is the only kind that works is literally a threat to my life. The medication I require to stay alive costs about $6,000 a month at retail prices. I had decent health insurance until about a decade ago, when I got really sick and nearly died. I spent a couple of months in the hospital. I was fired from my job for being unable to work, and I lost my health insurance. I paid for COBRA for as long as I could, but I ran out of money and went through all my savings and ended up losing my health insurance. I was without it for two years. I didn’t qualify for Medicaid in Texas because I had no children and was capable of working, per them. Similarly, I was denied for SSI Disability twice for the same reason. I had to survive using free samples of medication from doctor’s offices, expired medication that medical facilities couldn’t by law administer to patients, and less-effective, older drugs that hadn’t been used to treat my disease since the 1980s. I ended up almost dying again because I couldn’t get the $6,000/month medication. (And the drug companies lie when they say they help people who can’t afford their medication. They refused to help. They’d send a coupon for $25 off my monthly co-pay, but no insurance means no co-pay. It was utterly ridiculous.) I’ve been with my husband since the 1990s, but we didn’t have the right to marry until 2015. That right could get taken away at any time if a case goes to the Supreme Court. The far right WANTS my rights to be taken away. I’m not human to them. As an atheist, I don’t want to have to live under the rules of the right’s superstitions. They are free to believe whatever stupidity they want, but I don’t want to be forced to live by their rules. I want to be free to have sex with any consenting adult of my choosing. I want to be able to view or read materials about any subject that doesn’t involve harming anyone to create. I want everyone to have their sexual and gender identities recognized under law. I want women to have full bodily autonomy. I want children to be educated about science and facts, not about myths and fairy tales that they’re told are "true." The left: Please be respectful of others and use everyone’s preferred pronouns. The right: Doctors should be jailed for treating trans people. The left: The police shouldn’t kill persons of color. The right: There can’t be any limits on who buys weapons or how many and how lethal those weapons are. The left: People shouldn’t have to go bankrupt because they got cancer. The right: Too bad if you get sick. Guess you’ll die. It’s our imaginary friend’s plan. The left: Everyone deserves to have the same rights. The right: Only white, straight, cis, Christian males deserve rights. Everyone else can go f**k themselves.
I was a bit wary of the title, but god damn you're so well spoken about these topics. It's tough to distill the fundamental differences between the two ideological extremes, but taking them to their practical ends and examining the world they want is really effective. "We're not the same" rings so true here
9 seconds in and you hit the nail on the head my father is Hardcore Republican and I watch them spiral but my mother is anything but but that poisonous false equivalency BS has made it so I can't have any conversations with her because she was brought up to look at both sides ant treat them the same
I mean...if you believe that the common people should be treated fairly, control the means of production, and that a handful of rich people should _not_ be able to get fat by abusing the workers, then you typically just don't have the motivation to start a genocide or something like that. Can it happen? Sure. But...that can happen in ANY political system. It's not a Socialism issue, it's a "human beings kinda suck" issue.
The difference is the implicit mindset of the right and left. The right sees society as inherently hierarchical. They see the natural organization of society as a pyramid with the few people at the top getting most of the benefits and having most of the power. The left tends to see society's natural organization is more horizontal with everyone sharing equally in opportunity and power. So... Yeah, I have a LOT less problems with the far left than I do with the far right.
What boggles my mind is how many of them are willing to stay at the bottom as long as the illusion of anyone being able to make it to the top is maintained.
@@Average_Bradnah, they don't think they're at the bottom. But they do generally suffer from last place aversion, so any attempt to improve the material lives of people they view as beneath them is met with extreme resistance.
Steve, thank you for putting out this video. You've been a big proponent in leading my out of the embarrassing phase at 18yo thinking Ben Shapiro and Peterson were "thought gods" to where I am now as a 26yo. I've been watching Star Trek almost religiously since I was 13, but it took so long for me to pull me head out of the sand, and I'm so glad that it's thru Star Trek and your general compassion for life that helped to allow me to grow to where I am. I started watching this channel and subscribed long enough ago I cant even remember. Could not possibly thank you enough for also helping to pull my head out of the cringy, crusted ass hole that is the "trekie fan boy circle jerk." So I've also grown a lot in that regard. To hell with canon! This remains one of very few "Trek" channels I actively watch because I don't feel like I got creamed all over at the end of the videos. Your critique and insights are fascinating, educational, fun and entertaining. I appreciate all that you do!
I get the feeling that Trekkies and Trekkers tend to be more utopian, generally speaking, than society at large, especially if they've actively processed what they were watching.
Wow, this is well beyond good. It's terrific. I didn't decide one day to become a Democrat or a leftist. I was raised by an extremely religious, very conservative family in the bible belt. As I got older and learned how to utilize deductive reasoning and critical thinking skills, when I learned to seek undeniable facts without caring where those facts led me, it was then that it became abundantly clear that the left, with all its faults and failings, is exponentially more scientific, fact driven, reasonable, honest and ethical than the right ...and it's not remotely close.
Far Right on the hungry & homeless. If a man does not work nor shall he eat. Far Left on the hungry & homeless. Hey everyone has a human right to food & shelter. Ummmm yeah obviously both exactly the same.
I used to say both sides were the same because that’s what everybody around me would say. That and other rhetoric stopped me from voting. At some point I woke up, educated myself, and my political leaning shifted from “centrist” to solidly left. Now when people say the same things, I think they are being willfully ignorant or trying to appease people who lean right. It’s so frustrating. Going to just start pulling out this video and save myself some breath in the future
Speaking as a self described "centrist", the republican party isn't anywhere close to the center. In my youth I would occasionally vote for a republican but those moderate republicans might as well not be in the party any more since they can't make it through a primary. The republicans have just gone right off the rails to the right openly courting groups that would have been shunned back when I started voting. The democrats used to be kind of to the left of me (I have always been more of a democrat than a republican), and over the course of time there are some groups that have gone farther left (progressives), but they haven't really gone that far. At least they aren't espousing the greatness of Pol Pot or Stalin like their analogs on the right... and if they did, they would be kicked to the curb. Being a centrist means being a democrat today. No one else is even competing for the middle.
@@deadstump4970 in reality the USA has no left. its just the GOP are so far right now it skews the whole picture. dems are centre right on most issues. america doesnt really comprehend what the left is. its a boogeyman to rednecks.
Yeah anyone claiming to be a centrist at this point is either completely ignorant or just trying to hide the fact that they are actually just conservative. The center point between 2 right wing parties is still right wing that's true but in the face of that harm reduction should be what guides your vote and there is only one choice that makes any sense.
Ive been trying to have this convo with so called moderate friends and family for years and it's near impossible to get through to them. In my experience people who think like that feel superior like they rise above the fray and everyone else is just arguing and being petty.
@@futurestoryteller A large portion of the 'moderates' or 'swing voters' are not actually middle-of-the-road. What they are is disengaged from politics and news. They score low on quizzes regarding politicians, world leaders, laws, economics, etc. and seem to use their 'moderate' label as a way to avoid showing their limited knowledge. This means they don't know who really represents their interests and often go with the crowd or skip voting entirely.
I'm a moderate and I think what you'll find is simply a difference in methodology. Most moderates know the extreme right is WAY more dangerous. Hence why Trump keeps losing despite is tantrums. The reason moderates are more "tolerant" of the right is not to show support of it. It's that we believe we must be seen as less biased inherently if we are going to convince anyone on the right of their errors. People on the right will not listen to anyone on the left because of what they view as overwhelming bias and corruption (justified or otherwise). So to be moderate and willing to criticize the left when it is warranted - especially in front of right wingers - is to invoke a sense of understanding and credibility to the right... thereby hopefully earning some influence. Basically.... the left can be right.... moderates prefer to be persuasive.
@@robertbeste I'm not going to say you shouldn't, or that you can't _try_ to convince the far right to be less genocidal... but it's largely wasted effort since people on the far right are on the far right because they are ideological fascists who believe in genociding anyone who is not them. That's not a 'difference of opinion', it's a fundamental difference in core values and world view, but particularly in respect to other people having the right to simply exist. But hey, if you can convince a Nazi to stop being a Nazi, great: one less Nazi. I'd _rather_ talk Nazis out of being Nazis if I can, and I will try if they have never actually acted on their beliefs and are expressing a desire to leave the far right. But sadly, as Karl Popper points out in the Paradox of Tolerance: "But we should claim the right to suppress them if necessary even by force; for it may easily turn out that they are not prepared to meet us on the level of rational argument, but begin by denouncing all argument; they may forbid their followers to listen to rational argument, because it is deceptive, and teach them to answer arguments by the use of their fists or pistols. We should therefore claim, in the name of tolerance, the right not to tolerate the intolerant. We should claim that any movement preaching intolerance places itself outside the law and we should consider incitement to intolerance and persecution as criminal, in the same way as we should consider incitement to murder, or to kidnapping, or to the revival of the slave trade, as criminal." If you're not prepared to shoot Nazis when you can't convince them to stop being Nazis, then the Nazis _will_ shoot you.
@@KrantzstoneI love your comment. As a German, I have come to the conclusion that, for those nazis, who will always be nazis, there are only a handful of solutions => 👊🔪🎯💉🪓💣😵⚰️
"Peter's theory of mutual aid came to him in the most unlikely of places. To follow in the footsteps of his hero, Alexander von Humboldt, when he was twenty years old, Kropotkin began a series of expeditions in Siberia. At that point, he was already an avowed evolutionary biologist-one of the few in Russia-and a great admirer of Darwin and his theory of natural selection. Fifty thousand miles later, and five years the wiser, Kropotkin left Siberia a Darwinian. But he was a very different kind of evolutionary biologist: a new species of sort. For in Siberia, Kropotkin had not found what he had expected to find. Though still in its early gestation period when Kropotkin began his journey through Siberia, evolutionary theory of the day advanced that the natural world was a brutal place: competition was the driving force. And so, in the icy wilderness, Peter expected to witness nature red in tooth and claw. He searched for it. He studied flocks of migrating birds and mammals, fish schools, and insect societies. What he found was that competition was virtually nonexistent. Instead, in every nook and cranny of the animal world, he encountered mutual aid. Individuals huddled for warmth, fed one another, and guarded their groups from danger, all seeming to be cogs in a larger cooperative society. "In all the scenes of animal lives which passed before my eyes," Kropotkin wrote, "I saw mutual aid and mutual support carried on to an extent which made me suspect in it a feature of the greatest importance for the maintenance of life, the preservation of each species and its further evolution." Kropotkin didn't limit his studies to animals alone. He cherished his time in peasant villages, with their sense of community and cooperation: in these small Siberian villages, Kropotkin began to understand "the inner springs of the life of human society." There, by observing "the constructive work of the unknown masses," the young scientist witnessed human cooperation and altruism in its purest form. The conflict then arose in trying to align his observations with Darwinian theory. While he might easily have abandoned evolutionary thinking altogether, joining many other Russian scientists in dismissing Darwin's ideas as nothing more than Victorian smoke and mirrors, Kropotkin understood that evolutionary thinking could explain the diversity of life he saw around him. And so he set up the tightrope on which he would balance for the rest of his life. He advocated that natural selection was the driving force that shaped life, but that Darwin's ideas had been perverted and misrepresented by British scientists. Natural selection, Kropotkin argued, led to mutual aid, not competition, among individuals. Natural selection favored societies in which mutual aid thrived, and individuals in these societies had an innate predisposition to mutual aid because natural selection had favored such actions. Kropotkin even coined a new scientific term-progressive evolution-to describe how mutual aid became the sine qua non of all societal life-animal and human. Years later, with the help of others, Kropotkin would formalize the idea that mutual aid was a biological law, with many implications, but the seeds were first sown in Siberia. From the Siberian tundra, Kropotkin's thinking turned to the political implications of mutual aid. The ants and termites, the birds, the fish and the mammals were cooperating in the absence of any formal organizational structure-that is without any form of "government." The same was true in the peasant villages, where mutual aid abounded, but a centralized government structure was nowhere to be seen. Kropotkin sensed great similarities with the writings of anarchists, which he had taken to covertly as a teenager. Leave people with complete freedom and autonomy, Peter had read in the anarchist literature, and they will naturally cooperate. In Siberia, Kropotkin had discovered this to be true not only for humans, but for all species that lived in groups. What marked so much in the natural world could surely help in politics and society. "I lost in Siberia," Kropotkin would write," whatever faith in State discipline I had cherished before: I was prepared to become an anarchist." Peter became so convinced that his scientific findings on mutual aid explained the biological underpinnings of political anarchy, that years after his trek through Siberia, he wrote in his obituary for Charles Darwin that, properly understood, Darwin's theories were "an excellent argument that animal societies are best organized in the communist-anarchist manner." In time, Kropotkin's ideas on the science of mutual aid would lead to his rise as the most famous anarchist of his day. Kropotkin today retains his moniker as a key founder of anarchist principles. And for more than 80 years-until about the 1960s-Kropotkin's ideas on mutual aid played a prominent, critical role in the study of behavior and evolution. And during that same period, the Prince's book-length treatments on ethics, geology, history and literature had a huge impact not only on those fields, but on areas as diverse as city planning, communist ideology and the modern "green" movement." - excerpted from The Prince of Evolution: Peter Kropotkin's Adventures in Science and Politics by Lee Alan Dugatkin.
"Left wing extremist; right wing extremist - I see no difference.", "For sure there is one", says the kangaroo, "left extremists burn cars, right extremists burn foreigners. And this makes the left extremists worse, because the car could belong to me. Foreigners, on the other hand, I don't own any" German comedian Mark Uwe Kling in "the Kangaroo Chronicles"
I believe the ECONOMIC commonality between the 'left and right' is far more greater than any of the Social differences between the two. It's not left vs right, but top vs bottom It's not Democrats vs Republicans, it's the people/working class vs owners (ceos and elite shareholders) It's not Red vs Blue, it's the 1% vs you (us) When the American people put their differences aside to focus on economic problems and deal with the wealthy ruling elite, I believe many of our "social problems and differences" will become clearer.
It's probably a combination of those things more than anything. It's definitely left vs. right. It's also top vs. bottom. There are many reasons for both arguments to be reasonably and logically made. It's not just one thing and doesn't have to be settled or described as just one thing.
What you said is a solid summation of the economic thought of the left, though. At least, the portion of the left that's further left than self-described "centrists" and social democrats.
The right also discusses the wealthy ruling elite. They claim that Trump can't possibly be a part of it, and they only believe leftists and democrats are of that class. They claim that the ruling elite wants to destroy the nuclear family and subvert their values by promoting "gender ideology". So, you're right, but you're also wrong. Many MANY people think that economic and social issues are intrinsically linked, including people on the right. The rightwingers, however, have embroiled all that in with conspiracy theories, and want to conform everyone to the ideals they THEY THINK are the CORRECT ones. The politicians, the elite, stoke the flames of their ignorance, and their constituents eat it up, and regular neighbors on the ground pour gasoline on their hatred of "the other".
It makes me sad that we live in a time and age when these things actually have to be explained. Either has indoctrination become so powerful that people have been brainwashed to forget their class (and what that even means), or hatred among ones own people became so strong that they just don't care as long as they can vent it somewhere. In either case progressives lost a huge deal in the communication game, and I just hope we are able to win it back fast enough.
I've come across this situation quite often, where a person will argue about how much better the Republican Party is. How they care so much more for the "Average" American, taxes, taxes, taxes etc. However, when you question them a little further, they don't actually know the "politics" behind what they're saying and have no idea who these things are actually geared toward. Nor do they seem to know who their representatives are. Then when you really get into it, they admit that they are only "Republican" because that is who they have been taught to vote for. Who their dads have voted for their entire lives, and they themselves actually have no idea why.
That was me, 35 years ago. I fell for the boilerplate and slogans, and never actually bothered to look at policy. One night at work, an attorney was at my bar and I was just regurgitating some talking points. He challenged me on them. It was kind of a shock, but I'd spoken with him on many occasions and I respected him. I didn't have cognitive dissonance, and I didn't go into defensive mode. I actually considered his objections, and he turned out to be correct. The question was "can the private sector do it better than the government". I'd been listening to right wingers without considering the possibility of rent seeking. Private prisons and charter schools, for example. They aren't better. They're for profit, and they cut corners. And, it doesn't save us a dime because as soon as they get the contract, they lobby for higher pay (for the shareholders), and often get it, while treating their employees considerably worse than their public sector equivalents. It was a scam all along to funnel tax money to their donor friends.
I love the saying that goes “Libertarians are like house cats- convinced of their fierce independence yet completely reliant on the system they don’t appreciate or understand.”
Thank you. I've been thinking this for weeks but couldn't find the right words to describe it. This is wonderfully said. Far leftists make me roll my eyes. Far righters make me concerned for the well-being of far too many people.
One side believes that I deserve basic human rights, the other just had a group of government officials release a 900 page manifesto that includes "great" policies planned if they win the presidential election such as: federal level "don't say gay" law and total ban on abortion, and complete dissolution of state's rights that allow the federal government to prosecute anybody they want, including state officials they believe are in violation of said proposed laws. Oh, and their current favorite nominee has promised to enact the Insurrection Act as soon as he's in office to allow military retaliation against protesters. These are not the same. We fought a war over this. The whole world was involved.
Steve, this is the most intelligent description of our political system I have heard since I left collage 60 yrs ago. Thank you you have made my day! Live long and prosper.
This was incredibly well put together. Thanks for articulating exactly why I'm personally so deeply anti-centrist. Both sides have problems, but only one is proud of them.
Thank you, Steve. I am a pediatrician in Missouri, and for decades I have been very involved in health care advocacy for children, primarily at the state level, including through leadership in a statewide professional organization dedicated to assuring that all children and adolescents have access to quality, affordable health care. This organization is, in its charter, non-partisan. However, when it comes time to go to Jefferson City to talk to legislators about policies and statutory measures that we endorse because they would benefit Missouri's children, the vast majority of these proposals come from Democrats. Rough estimate: 95%. Further, when it comes to proposed legislation that would hurt children, whether through reducing eligibility for food assistance programs, allowing open carry of guns in schools, or eliminating requirements for vaccination, I cannot think of a single proposal that did not come from the GOP. We get accused of being "partisan." We are not. We do not favor one party over the other. We are, however, pro-child. If you want us to endorse your policy proposals, you might consider crafting them so that children and their parents will not have to worry about kids being safe at school, having enough to eat, or being able to see a doctor and get vaccinated so they can survive till adulthood.
I mean, for billionaires who built their entire fortunes off of exploitation, the idea of a system where everyone is actually treated fairly is about the scariest thing imaginable. And those same billionaires spend a lot of money on add campaigns to brainwash the masses who would actually benefit from robust social policies to be just as scared.
Even sixty years ago when both parties were closer together than now (e.g., it was possible for a candidate to be a liberal Republican), there were still clear differences. The false equivalency is IMHO a rationalization for either not voting or not supporting progressive initiatives.
Most true progressives aren't liberal anymore. They believe that the ends they want cannot be accomplished through liberal means, and instead would go for more authoritarianism to achieve the "correct" world.
Every American owes it to themselves to actually watch C-Span and actually read or seek to understand what laws are being proposed and passed by each party. Rather than rely on whatever media you choose to get your news from take the time to understand who is passing what laws.
I think a major contributing factor to the political landscape we have today is the fact that everyone learns about the Holocaust in school from an incredibly young age, but curriculum completely skims over communist dictators like Joseph Stalin, Pol Pot, or Mao Zedong, the last of which killed more people than five Hitlers combined, but still probably couldn't be picked out of a police line up by 99% of highschool students. We are correct to fear the results of far right policy left unchecked, but to say the far left isn't playing with the same stakes can be debunked simply by opening any world history textbook.
The worst excesses of the far right is systemic racism, callousness towards the poor, and war mongering; while the worst excess of the far left is Gal Gadot singing Kumbaya translated into Na'vi while cosplaying Avitar.
As a latine anarchist whose political practices are rooted in indigenous values (and therefore considered as far to the left as possible), I often struggle to get people to understand that the most radical thing involving this everyday political practice is just the values of "humans are part of the environment" and "people over paperwork." There are many people who depend on community, not power structures, to live, and it's for them that anarchists often come to support most immediately. I don't have the time and energy to beef with fellow leftists because at the end of the day, we all just want everybody to be fed.
Some people don't realize that the political spectrum is not a single axis line (x in math terms). There is also the Authoritarian vs Libertarian axis line (y in math) and there's other nuances. I'm just glad you mentioned that both leggy and right can be authoritarians, even if that isn't what we're seeing in our current climate.
In the US, I'd be considered "far left." In most of Europe, I'd be considered a reasonable person a little be left of center. The US far right is insanely far right.
Something that I think is revealing about the way of thinking by folks on the further right of the spectrum, is when they confront you with the typical whataboutisms, like pointing out instances of racism against whites, sexism against men, or excessive consumption and spending by green-activists. If we're being generous and take those fallacies as good faith arguments, it suggests that they are more worried that their perceived in-group/out-group membership is threatened to be flipped around, but that the inherent "badness" of racism, sexism and excessive consumption is accepted. It's like a kid being angry at a sibling for stuffing themselves with candy before dinner. Its not that they care about the health of their sibling, they want also to stuff themselves with candy.
@@aristotleasparaguspodcast1129 If you really think playground level shouting of "is/isn't ' is a sensible political discussion then I'm guessing you haven't studied much and therefore probably dumb enough to vote right wing
@@aristotleasparaguspodcast1129Not anymore. Biden knows to lean towards MAGA is going to lead to a new CW that's why he addresses them and the politicians provoking far right nonsense. So he's warning people before it's too late. You're on the wrong side, prepare for consequence.
I say that both parties are actually right wing. One just happens to be less, and usually has better policies, but neither are exempt from the shitty behaviors towards their own people and from the opposite party. I'm only left with one choice for the lesser Evil, but all they usually do is end up conceding to R's 9/10 via the both aisle's approach. D's are enablers, R's constantly set the standard for which all is judged by, which ends up relying on tropes for the ill-informed masses. This dynamic allows them to enforce false beliefs of any aggression/forward thinking policies/ mandates / laws as generally not for the people because they are asserting themselves upon everyone, effectively neutering the Left from having any gains, and The D's are happy to oblige to protect corporate profits and their means of production. It's a full-on race to the bottom. Trump and Desantis are just the first taste of what is on the bottom of that barrel, there are more lying in wait.
I just found your channel and man I'm glad I did because you bring something back to the conversation that makes us believe the false equivalency arguments less and that's called nuance and context. Generally a lot of people want to pretend as though if something is the same on the surface then it's the same underneath. The far left wants to potentially give people a decent wage or decent healthcare, but the far right wants to ban books, label every gay and trans person a predator and take away abortion rights. People need to get back to thinking critically and be skeptical when politicians will tell you something or in a lot of cases media organizations because nine times out of 10 they're not specialists in any particular field, and they always have a motive to make you believe a certain thing. But also don't just believe some conspiracy theorist either
Well said.
Authoritarianism to the left is a bug. Authoritarianism to the right is a feature...
Authoritarianism on the left is the Stasi.
@@SlickSimulacrum Ironically you seem to have no clue what authoritarian means, either.
Authoritarianism isn't mutually exclusive with leftism, neither with democracy.
You're probably conflating authoritarianism with totalitarianism.
@@KhalkaraAuthoritarianism and totalitarianism go hand in hand with each other. Dialects of the same language.
@@Khalkara The most useful definition of leftism is the abolishment of hierarchies. An authoritarian government is one of the most hierarchal systems you can implement. It's in the name. Your power in society is how much the dictator/party/whatever personally likes you. This by definition cannot be leftist. The political compass version of leftism is not accurate, it's been simplified so you can have a plot to neatly place a huge variety of human thought. Leftism is not a purely economic set of ideologies.
@@Khalkara
"Authoritarianism isn't mutually exclusive with leftism"
Good thing Charlespecaut303 didn't say it is then, right?
The left often annoys me. The far right often scares me. I don't like either feeling, but I would rather be annoyed than scared.
Exactly, I'll take the kid that picks his boogers over the bully any day.
@@Remedy462 I'd compare the left to the scrawny kid with glasses that's constantly whining and correcting people. Which is annoying but preferable to the violent alcoholic that keeps beating the shit out of everyone and harrassing the ladies
i must admit i'm a little iffy about hamas apologia from the left recently
@@JohnWittledid Hamas kill 10,000+ civilians just recently? Oh wait, Israel did that.
@@JohnWittle I would say that you have valid concerns there, but there's a lot of hijacking of the topic by deliberate bad actors too. It's hard to tell who is doing the "false flag" thing, who has gotten caught up with it without totally realizing, and who is showing their true colors. We're seeing what is doubtless a problem, but we're not sure of the full scope of the problem yet.
There is no “far left” in the US. The Democratic Party would be considered center-right in Europe.
center right to solid right.
@@NationalistsRuinAmerica yup. cos the GOP are now full on neo-fascist, i am english, its hilarious when fox news calls the dems far left.
The Democratic party isn't far left, but at least we have me. 😅 If you consider nationalizing health insurance and making every business into a worker co-op to be far left.
No far left political representation but there is a growing number of real leftists in the US.
They're somewhere between our centrist Liberal party and right wing Conservative party in Canada. A lot of Americans would consider our centre-leftist New Democratic Party to be radical leftists. what a difference a shift in the Overton window makes!
The greatest trick the devil ever pulled was convincing insecure people that political apathy is somehow a more intellectually rigorous route than actually believing in something
And it works so well.
The devil and christ are fictional characters from a storybook of fairytales.
Belief is so difficult, especially if you become existentially depressed or inconsolable about human nature.
Ahhh yes, the intellectually lazy "Uni party" proponents that can't seem to understand something as simple as court picks make not just a small difference, but a HUGE difference.
@@Remedy462I hear ya. What I have learned to do is find the value of existence that is not dependent on the value, or condition of humanity. I believe there is life beyond this place.
My oldest friend claims he's "independent" and has "a pox on both their houses" attitude...in his little disclaimer before he agrees with far-right positions. So there's another reason people pretend the left and the right the same: They're on the right and want to pretend they're not or persuade liberal friends and family they're not.
Whenever I see someone with "independent" or "critical thinker" in their social media bio, I know they're going to be channeling every single fabricated grievance Newsmax et al. are pushing this week.
Ah yes, the Tim Pool/Dave Rubin school of politics. They often go by "classical liberal" as well. It's so weird, just identify as what you actually are. Be proud and defend your views. Identifying as something else makes you appear ignorant, at best, and duplicitous at worst.
All of my acquaintances who claim to be independent only vote for Republicans. Lol. They hate all of the same things. Everything that is different than them. And they only care about their own tax returns, their own 401k and their own asses.
It’s been 15 or more yrs since I heard someone label themselves as a libertarian and describe themselves as anything but a conservative. Just admit it you like the culture war dumb shit.
@@MichaelDeHaventhey say "facts over feelings" but have big concerns that saying their beliefs will get them called homophobic or racist... when their beliefs are just racist or homophobic... Dx
I tried to have this conversation with some internet peeps once. I told them that failures of socialism are failures, and the failures of fascism are by design. Those things can't be equivalent because we judge ideas based on intentions. Also, the successes of socialism are by far preferable to the successes of fascism.
Exactly. When you hear people on the right warning about the dangers of the left, it's all either moral panic type stuff ("the gays will get to marry your dogs!") or threatening us with a good time ("there will be fewer guns and higher taxes on the rich!!!"). When people on the left warn about the dangers of the right, they talk about actual problems that are affecting people's lives right now that will go unaddressed or made substantially worse.
@@SteveShivesThey love to make the members of LGBT fight among each other too (anyone and anything after the B is not part of the community what more do you waaant ex) same with factions of the left. If lefties stopped wokescolding for a second the right would never be elected unless it goes through a drastic reform aka disbanding.
@@SteveShives Remember the Right's panic of taco trucks on every street corner? To me, that sounds like solid lunch options. To the Right, it is a loss of culture. But it isn't like there are pot roast and cabbage trucks on every street corner now. Maybe the Right has a lot of foodphobes?
@@JoeJohnston-taskboy ngl those taco options sound amazing.
@@JoeJohnston-taskboy I would consider taco trucks on every corner as the best self own in history. While I'm chowing down on tacos that I could walk to get.
At the end of the day, "billionaires shouldn't be allowed to exist" and "poor people shouldn't be allowed to survive" are only equally extreme if you secretly think of yourself as a potential billionaire.
Most Americans think of themselves as potential billionaires. Or temporarily embarrassed millionaires.
Well all I need is to completely dismiss myself of ALL morality and I can be a billionaire in no time.
Temporarily embarrassed billionaire is what I've heard & it is poignant.
It also ignores the fact that we can just tax billionaires until there are no billionaire and nobody dies.. they just end up demoted to millionaire.. that is not as immoral as making all the poor people no longer exist to a person who refuses to believe in wealth redistribution.. they are basically saying we need to get rid of poor people and we can’t do that by giving them all money..
it’s silly to think both sides are immoral or wrong here.. there are basically two options 1) take money from the rich and give some to the poor so we no longer have poor people 2) make poor people stop existing without any wealth redistribution
@@ThatOpalGuyyou can become a millionaire by dismissing all morals. There are lots of different avenues for that.
But to become a billionaire, that is a whole other thing.
You don't just need no morals, you also either need to have prestige, or a lot of skill in something, and a whole, whole lot of luck.
The Right: Gays should have no right! Lock them up!
The Left: Let's treat everyone kindly instead.
Centrists: Both of these are the same.
😂😂😂
There are no real centrists. Most of them are rightwinger, who just dont want to call themselves in this way.
I think mostly people who equate both parties as being the same (though I could be wrong here) are doing so from the lens of being further to the left of the Democratic party. And even then we recognize the difference on culture war issues, but see a uniparty when it comes to economic ones.
Neither party is fighting to stop the flow of money into politics, neither party is passing laws that limit the ability of congress to do insider trading on the stock market. Both parties, at least initially, opposed student debt relief (and a lot of democrats still aren't completely on board) Even our president sided against the unions in the rail worker strike last year when he could have applied that same pressure on the side of the union. So on these types of issues we see little to no difference between the parties.
@@anthonydelfino6171as viewed from Europe, centerists are to the left of the democratic party.
Realistically it's not about the stance. The democrats and Republicans are the same in the fact that they both benefit off of society being in a state of needing fixed, and will never actually do anything that makes society better because they want to maintain their power.
I'm a Centrist and that doesnt fit. In our current climate many Democrats are further to the right than most true Centrists. So a lot of true Centrists look like Democrats right now. We tend to lie along the Y-axis of the spectrum and often along the X-axis too. We believe in a balance and equal rights for all. (So treat everyone kindly.) We don't like big swings to either side. We like regulation within reason but can't stand authoritarianism.
Also there's the fact that the "far left" is just what the far right calls the middle.
anyone to the left of Pinochet is a "leftist" to them
The funny thing is that those who identify as centrists are really just center right. The right in general calls the center left and beyond as far left
I usually give the line: "When you stand on the 5 yard line, the 50 yard line looks extreme."
@@rithvikmuthyalapati9754 At this point, the Overton window is pushed so far to the far right that those who call themselves 'centrist' are also pretty far right too (many of them are to the right of Dubya, policy-wise and definitely in terms of social politics).
I don't remember where, but within the last week I saw a video clip of a nationally elected Republican calling Joe Biden a communist. Republican-lite is extreme left in their minds.
Most of what is considered "far left" in the US is considered almost center in other countries anyways. So comparing it with the "far right" is just laughable.
And even in Europe, the "true" far left doesn't go around murdering people, they damage property and stuff, yes, so if you look only at the overall crime statistics there are many far left ones, but almost all of those that end with people in hospitals or graves are far right crimes...
The UKs National Health Service is a right that anyone in the UK can use for free, after National Insurance, that is. National Insurance pays for it, which we all pay. Our conservative government want to bring it down and replace it with corporations charging fees for their service because they think profiteering businesses will strengthen the country. If some Americans think the NHS is a far left policy, then they have been sorely misled. I wish the USA had an NHS, but the pharmaceutical corporations have their tentacles far inside the US government. They would push hard against the idea, and so would conservative politicians and right-wing media.
@@mrpositroniaCorrection: the conservative government don't actually THINK it will strengthen the country, that's just what they say to get enough votes to continue taking from the poor to give to the rich.
@@mrpositronia I haven't heard any of my fellow Americans say that the NHS is far left, but I do hear them say that it's "shit health care," and that if we got Universal Health Care here in the U.S., we'd see declining standards, and everything would go to hell. They claim people from Canada and the U.K. come here for their health care. All of this is bullshit of course, we already have crappy standards here. They forget that great health care in America only happens for you if you have a fat wallet. And anyone traveling from the U.K. or Canada probably has a fat wallet too. The rest of us are struggling by with no dental or vision care because they're not included with our insurance. Do everything necessary to maintain and strengthen the NHS.
@@sharimeline3077 In fairness to the people pushing that false narrative, they don’t consider you a person if you don’t have a fat wallet, so nobody else counts.
I have criticisms of the "far" left, but I have full-blown fears of the far right.
"I'm not saying every right-winger is an authoritarian...but most of them seem completely fine letting the authoritarians run the show." This. SO this.
Strongly disagree, saying "not all right wingers are authoritarian to the same degree" because all of them support Capitalism and Capitalism needs authoritarianism to work and thrive.
@@eleSDSU lots of truth right here. i think he was being charitable here though so ill give him the benefit of the doubt
@@KingJT80 Being charitable with authoritarians...talk about harmful habits.
@@eleSDSUcharitability is good optics to some, net positive so long as it's in areas that dont actually benefit the authoritarians any more than they already have
@@maudley charitability might be good optics sometimes but anything that gives power to authoritarians will come back to haunt us when they inevitably stand against us and in favor of the power structures that keep most people oppressed, as history has taught us again and again.
Those who don't learn from history are doomed to repeat it; for a thoroughly documented example of this I'd suggest reading about the 1973 Civic-Military fascist coup in Chile and how that type of charitability has resulted on complete fascist control of the state for the past 50 years that has only been possible with the unwavering support of Liberals.
In other words, please don't be charitable be realistic.
Oh so you ADMIT you're ok with good things, but NOT bad things? Pssh. Typical
I'm reminded of a slightly more nuanced scenario where Sam Seder was asked if he would not refuse out of principle to vote for candidate who plans to open two concentration camps, over his opponent who says he'd like four; because Sam himself is, of course, opposed to any concentration camps. He said no, that he would vote for the first candidate. Because "bad things are objectively better than worse things."
@@futurestoryteller Harm reduction is sometimes the only choice we have, sadly, but I'll still choose it every time over Actively Make Things Worse.
😂
Ah yes, but you see in the past, people who promised to do good things ended up doing bad things. So that means that people who aim to do good things are just as bad as people who do bad things.
@@insane_trollhmmm, living up to your name, eh?
One side wants to feed children and make sure they get health care. The other side wants to send them to work in factories and marry them off as 12 year olds. That tells people everything they need to know about them.
Up until recently people would say that what you just said was just nonsense but I kid you not, Governor Huckabee Sanders is actually proposing loosening labor laws for minors to work hard labor. And on the other hand Governor Walz signed laws for free lunch for all, loan forgiveness programs for nurses and requires workplace safety action plans … ya know things that benefit us regular people.
Gee which one do I prefer?
Until you get into foreign policy and see the Democrats want the same, and just token concessions for the working class.
@@sassenachdragon Yeah, all the crazy, exaggerated parody is true now. Reality has thrown away it's meds and is wandering around with plastic bags on it's feet and a sweater for pants.
Actual, elected members of Government are publicly claiming "The Jews" are using lasers to set California on fire, and a Presidential candidate's followers stormed the Capital. If you woke up from a coma and someone told you that, you'd nope right back to sleep.
@@sassenachdragon
Well, it's a good thing she's going to jail now.
This is something that I realized as a young child when trying to figure out where I stood politically: I compared the extremes. Extreme Left= eco/animal rights-activists. Extreme Right= Literal Nazis. One side is driven by compassion, the other by hate & evil. Pretty simple when you think about it.
As a retired Army soldier and small business owner that was raised on traditional “American” values that grew up in the South, I wholeheartedly agree with your video. The Republican Ideology as currently offered is so terrible that I consider Ronald Reagan to be a moderate who wouldn’t be able to bring a candle to the whirlwind that is Maga. No thanks. I also don’t like every idea the left pushes, but I can live with most of what they offer. Watching the Republican’s dismantle public education in Florida is insidious and terrible to understand and yet that is exactly what they are doing.
Agreed, Reagan was moderate in comparison to the MAGA movement. But, ironically, his administration started the changes in our society that eventually made the MAGA movement possible.
Reagan let the AIDS virus rage while he thought it was just killing queer people. He let it happen to his own "friend," Rock Hudson. May he rest in piss.
I've found that "All parties are the same" really means "I like the far right one but I don't want to say that I like their far right views".
its been conservative propaganda around the globe for 100 years.
I also feel that way about libertarians. When someone tells me they are a libertarian, I think, "So, you're a republican but you want to feel special?"
@@Remedy462 - I categorize them as "embarrassed Republicans". They agree with Republicans, they vote for Republicans, and they believe all the fearmongering the Republicans put out, but the also know that Republicans are socially viewed as morons, and that the party is an abject embarrassment to the country, so they waffle around a bit being noncommittal, looking for any reason to praise the right or criticize the left.
Some people just want to avoid conflict. My family consists of 1 far right, 1 right, me on the left, and a moderate peacekeeper who says "both sides are the same".
Absolutely this!
I am a Democrat because my father, who was a union man, went on a snowy Saturday afternoon in Iowa in 1974 to hear a speaker at a union smoker. Only 5 of us, that snowy day, came to hear a speech from a man named Jimmy Carter. Instead of standing up on the stage and lecturing us, he had us arrange chairs in a circle, sat with us, and chatted and answered questions. I was not able to vote, but he went out of his way to ask me if I had any questions.
This was about a year before the Iowa caucus and the Presidential race to determine the Democratic candidate for president. It was more than that he was charming and likeable, he was kind. He said to the group something along the lines of Nixon (who had resigned from office) was the reason why we couldn't allow government to fall into the hands of people who wanted to abuse power but should vote for people who wanted to serve the people.
That's why I am a Democrat. I fairly consider the candidates, locally and nationally, but no one represents my political and social views better than the Democrats. Maybe someday another party will come along who better represent my beliefs, but until then, I'm a Democrat.
Jimmy Carter is a great example of a good person. He dropped his Farm so as to not appear w/ a conflict of interest. And he spend his after presidency giving back, using his influence for good.
Dontcha know men of god grab women by their hoo haas and have enriched relations with Russian Dictators... Everyone knows that... Honesty is a libtard ideal!
yes... Sarcasm...
@@kawh8719He builds houses for the homeless, with his own hands. He's an amazing person
That's a lovely story.
It's really quite simple: The Far Left wants everyone to be treated equally, and the Far Right wants to exclude many groups of people from having equal right. The most basic way to put it: The Left includes, the Right excludes excludes.
The overall phrase I live by is "I support what is beneficial for society as a whole", so stricter gun control so children aren't dying to school shootings everyday, taxing the rich so everyone can have universal healthcare, functioning public transport, unemployment benefits, social security, etc. I don't give a damn about the 5 rich people who are holding back the rest of society because if we had services that benefited the average folk then the rich would be slightly less rich. The rich people with more money than they could possibly spend in a thousand lifetimes need to be an afterthought to the 99% of us trying to live actual lives.
It's way simpler than that. The far left wants everyone to be treated fairly. The far right wants that too...but their definition of "everyone" is terrifyingly narrow.
One of the biggest issues I've had as a leftist is in fighting. I've frequently said "the left will eat itself before it accomplishes anything." Or as Rhetoric says in Disco Elysium:
"Complaining about other communists is one of the most important parts of being a communist."
Generally because enforcing accountability is often a big goal of many leftists - if you can't do something without hurting people then you shouldn't do it at all
On the right, self accountability is proclaimed as something that people should do and group enforced accountability should be abolished, but then it's never actually followed through on. So when the right does accomplish something, they've done in it because they have been able to get away with it with no oversight. And the consequences are almost always harmful to someone underprivileged
That being said, online, there is a lot of talk of action and talk of accountability but nothing actually happens. Being online is a tar pit for leftists regardless. You can't accomplish much material good exclusively online, the internet has evolved to be a flytrap for energy that could be put into irl leftist activism.
That in fighting is because very few leftists are communists. Most of us are socialists or democratic socialists. Theres some overlap but mostly we are a far greater spectrum.
An inevitable outcome of tolerating other people of different backgrounds, cultures, and political views is that disagreement will occur. The Right has an easier time uniting for a single cause, because they have so little tolerance for nonconformity. Unfortunate but true.
Though I would rather have a messy Left, that tries to make things better, than a unified Right that causes suffering for all but the select "in" group.
"How to fairly serve everyone's interests" is just an inherently far more logistically complex goal than "how to serve myself." It takes a lot of energy to flesh out and while the online discourse feels like wasted effort, it's one of the greatest contributors to meaningful social evolution. Every other one has someone's thumb on the scale if not a whole bunch of missing seats at the table. Real progress can only be built on true, equitable consensus.
Every time the left eats itself, the meal is a little more digested.
Conversely, self-interest will always seem way more organized (House?) but only _before_ success (ah, House). Individualism is infinitely divisible, and from a position of success selfishness will always dictate dividing the spoils among the smallest group possible. The left endlessly faces and seeks to resolve its differences, and the right just promises to worry about the accounting after the heist, with each person eyeing what _they_ deem their cut of the booty.
The relationship between left, center, and right is akin to research, development, and marketing, or academics, manufacturing, and consumption. It may seem like development/manufacturing is where all the real work gets done, but without the other two creating possibility and dictating purpose it doesn't exist. That makes it seem like the right is a necessary evil, and I think that might even be true. It doesn't, however, mean it has to be the unregulated rotting midden heap America calls the right. My Americanized version of this analogy didn't have consumption - it had piracy.
@@hexzylethe internet is useful for galvanising the left. It brings the left together and helps grow the movement.
However most of the people who grow those audiences don't do anything with it. A lot advocate against voting, and don't even mention most of the shit that you can do except protesting.
However when these audiences are engaged in action, they can do serious fucking work. Whether you love or hate him, Vaush has done this with phone banking. He got his audience out in droves to do phone banking for the democratic party, if I remember correctly for local elections, getting a large enough chunk of his audience to participate such that it had a real influence on IRL politics. The exact same can be said for destiny and his efforts in canvassing IRL. It can be done, the people with the influence just have to act.
I was raised to fear the far left, and minimizing the far right. These days the opposite feels like the right call
For now, at least. Obviously if we had a Stalinist problem in place of fascists, this would change.
Anyways, can we have some more democratic socialism? That would be nice
@@warlordofbritanniathere's no other kind
Because it is
Same.
At this point I'd have to change myself to someone I never was in order to be accepted by alot of those same people I grew up with. Beliefs we shared are now "liberal" and politically incorrect in those circles.
God what a burden it is to be correct, one day you can hopefully go back to being wrong.
Far Left: the status quo is cruel and unfair. We need change.
Far Right: the status quo is terrifying. We need to go back to an imaginary past where everything was perfect.
Far right is only good for the people who believe that they would be on top in the imaginary past. Centrism and moderation are only good for people who think they are pretty much on top now.
It’s not a difficult choice.
There are twin boys, "Far Right" and "Far Left". It's their birthday. They have a cake.
Far Right wants the cake all to himself. Every crumb.
Far Left wants to share the cake equally between the two of them.
The boys' parents decide to share the cake between them.
Far Right throws a tantrum about how Far Left is getting what he wants and how Far Right never gets ANYTHING.
Most people are moderate though. Past experiences with far-left governments almost always ended up in authoritarianism at best and dictatorship at worst. Dissent is heavily frown upon. While I abhor the far-right I don't have any romantic notions regarding the far-left.
@@soundscape26 you think any of those 'communist' countries were actually communist? we havent had a proper communist country on the planet yet. its just been a lie to install an authoritarian dictator everywhere so far. the whole point of communism is there is no single leader.
@@soundscape26 Something to keep in mind, the vast majority of far left governments have historically been products of violence. Mao, the USSR, North Vietnam were all indeed authoritarian in nature, but why is that? its not like that happened in a vacuum, every single one of those examples were last man standing on their side of the spectrum because all the sane options were purged long before by the traditional, right wing governments.
@@soundscape26But again, the Left gets there as a corruption or failure of the system. The Right goes there intentionally.
The Nazis did *exactly* what they were intended to. The USSR lied to its people, and power was seized by violent means so it could be used to Stalin's benefit. These aren't the same.
Both sides try to force their views on everyone else, but there’s a difference: the left tries to force everyone to have respect, appreciation and tolerance for others, while the right tries to force everyone to have respect, appreciation and tolerance for the right.
The left wants everyone to be kind, environmentally sound, thoughtful, gentle and patient with children, respectful of women, educated on the true history of the founding of this nation & girded against racism and bigotry, free to marry who they wish, free to not marry if they wish, and to have a healthy, prosperous and fulfilling life.
The right just wants everyone to be slaves while killing each other.
If your idea of "force" is the Left giving you a stern talking to or a disapproving side-glance because you said something politically incorrect, you have truly lived a blessed life.
Authoritarians undermine elections, impose martial law, take away your rights, send dissenters to internment camps. Being "cancelled" for 24 hours is not "force".
its really cathartic hearing someone finally say out loud what ive been trying to explain to people for so long.
Thank you for this
"Both sides are too extreme."🤨 Well one side isn't trying to kill off my community for wanting to live their lives and are willing to work with literal nazis, I'll vote for that side.
Blue no matter who, but only because voting red we would end up dead.
It seems like a no-brainer, supporting candidates whose platform doesn't center on hate and fear of the marginalized groups.
Which community? They target quite a number at once.
@@adamherne2348 how are those two remotely comparable? One side saying you're bad and the other killing you are comparable how? I need Tylenol for this.
@@adamherne2348 That may sometimes be the case, some groups get so accustomed to conflict with everyone outside their in-group that they tend to become broadly hostile, but then so what? Why do you care whether or not some particular group likes you? Like, it would be easy to doubt your statement and ask what you disagree with about them that leads to them calling you a 'bad guy', but like, I get labeled that way by people who are generally much closer to me in political alignment than you likely are, and it doesn't affect me because I'm an adult and accept that everyone isn't always going to come to a consensus on things, and that sometimes people just don't like you, and it doesn't MEAN anything. Maybe you need to try growing the fuck up a bit if you're not able to handle someone labeling you as part of their out-group?
I spent most of my life believing in the false equivalency that both parties were equally bad in different way. It wasn't entirely out of ignorance, it was because in the few elections I ever paid attention to, I never found a candidate that was good on all the issues I cared about, I always ended up settling for the lesser of two "evils".
For most of my life I thought this made me "centrist" stuck between extremes, what I didn't realize until only the last few years ago is that I was actually a full-on leftist stuck on the sidelines of a system that stops at the center. That was when I finally realized that while I had never fully supported a Democrat, I had always been opposed to their Republican opposition.
I'm no activist, I don't have any clue how we get from the current system to one that if not better is at least more fairly balanced. What I do know is that despite the screeching of Republicans, the Democrats are not leftists. Those of us on the actual left, we don't have any representation in this country's government, and we aren't likely to get representation any time soon.
I still vote blue no matter who, not because I think the Democrats will do anything to improve the situation, but better dead than red... because if the Republican ever got all the power they crave, dead is probably what people like me and those I care about would be.
One way we could get away from our current system is getting rid of first-past-the-post voting for something like ranked choice voting. Our current system naturally lead to a two party system.
This!!!!
I vote Blue out of "harm reduction", not because I love the Democrats. In my opinion, most marginalized people don't love Democrats, but the Democrats do not advocate for harm and death and are not actively malicious on purpose. For those on the Right, misery and cruelty are features, not bugs!
The key is for those of us who feel this way to vote in primaries, to get more progressive candidates for the actual elections. Also, make sure all your friends actually vote! Voting in America is designed to be a hassle, especially for young people who aren't already registered, because young people, poor people and non-white people vote progressive.
Beau Of The Fifth Column has a few great videos on how to change the system and create something more closely aligned with your values.
I dont think it is as dire as some make it out to be. In Biden's first two years the house passed a lot of really progressive legislation. This was held back by literally 2 senators in a 50/50 senate. Those 2 senators also kept the filibuster in play. If those 2 senators were replaced with real Democrats we would have passed a lot more progressive legislation, and the stuff that did pass would have been a lot stronger...I will say it till I can't say it any more...YOU HAVE TO VOTE!!!!
One side wants to bring about fundamental human rights, the other one wants to take them away
One side wants everyone to be taken care of as best as we can, the other side wants people of a different ethnicity to die in a fire
I'm registered as a Republican, but only vote Democrat. When I see parents fighting for their rights to indoctrinate their kids with fake science in lieu of real science, it makes me want to vote for the opposite party.
Good man!
I changed my voter registration from Republican to democrat last election. There isn’t anything the republicans offer that I see as good for society now a days. I am to the left of the democrats now. The Overton window has been pulled backwards 80 years since Trump so I guess that makes me a progressive now that I want to go back to where we were before Regan.. now a days they claim pre Regan era politics is a social democrat or something.. according to the right wingers it’s communism.
Can you explain what you mean? Because I think there should be some clarification.
There's one thing I'd add about private authority and accountability. The right makes the point that you can vote with your wallet but then things become monopolies and you're forced to go by their terms or go without.
At the same time the right-wingers will bitch and moan when the left votes with their wallets and claim it's 'cancel culture' or some other nonsense when we don't buy what they think we should.
Or corporations realize they can make more money by marketing to demographics they'd been ignoring and then people on the right throw a hissy fit.
The fact that the carried interest loophole still exists for hedge fund billionaires who have destroyed more jobs and good companies is all the evidence that you need.
And then when you DO vote with your wallet, the right starts crying about 'cancel culture'.
The problem with any system where people vote with their wallet is that the people with the fattest wallet get the most votes and will use those votes to make their wallet even fatter.
I remember going into Communist forums back in the 2015/2016 period, along with venturing into the Libertarian/Conservative forums, there was no comparison; the most hardcore Communists took homelessness, healthcare, food insecurity, and political corruption; the Right however, they disliked the homeless, scapegoated minorities, and advocated for Fascism without saying the term.
When I was younger, back in the early 1960's, I remember my parents telling us that they voted Democrat because the Republicans caused unemployment to go up and there were more jobs under the Democrats.
I've seen it myself that the Right likes to make the people be more desperate, so we'd accept lower pay and worse working conditions.
the right = oligarch/corporation/royal power
the left = power to the workers/masses
the centre = basically the right with a smile on their faces and not quite so nasty/slightly more reasonable.
@@kanedNunableyup
Yup
Yes, the precarization of workers' lives is one of the mechanisms to take power from people and give it to capital, a core point of Capitalism.
You don't need to work if you don't want to,the republicans are working hard to have your children work for pennies.
Well said. It needs to be followed up with a piece that describes the world we leftists want. Which is presumably a world that's at least heading in the general direction of the Star Trek future. And how the things we believe in can get us there.
What the far right fails to understand is that we want to live in the Federation of Planets, not the Imperium of Man.
I think a big part of what led me down the path to socialism was the first tome I learned technological progress and automation could actually negatively impact people in some circumstances. That automation meant people losing their jobs and livelihoods instead of just having more free time. That struck me as a pretty clear sign the system was broken.
Work to eat makes sense in a system of extreme scarcity where everyone needs to pitch in to survive the winter, but tying people's ability to eat, sleep indoors, get medical treatment, etc. to holding a job when the job is totally unnecessary is ridiculous. It leaves us either making up countless new jobs just to keep employment up or letting huge swathes of the public die in the street while we have surplus production rotting or collecting dust. At some point we need to re-examine our relationship with labor as our productive capacity reaches near post-scaricty in some sectors. Technological advancement shouldn't be negative for the average worker. The Jetsons promised us a 2 hour work week, damnit!
Fully automated luxury gay space communism.
@@scienceandponies Well said. I am very much against the AI craze going on right now for that reason. AI is being used to remove people's livliehoods by making people's jobs redundant. If AI were actually being used to take jobs and we were given a good living by the government cuz of all the money we would be saving then I would be all for AI taking our job. But AI is being used the wrong way.
@@scienceandponiesdon't be scared of technological progression, be scared of the profit motive. Technological progression in a socialist society just means more free time. But in a capitalist society it means more people going hungry on the street.
Asking "Why're you Okay With the Far Left, But Not the Far Right". Is like asking "If you like something why don't you like it's opposite" or "If you're okay with medicine why cant you tolerate disease". If two people are standing on opposite sides of the planet that does not mean they're in the same location, the answer is not complicated.
"If you're ok with medicine why can't you tolerate disease" is a winner. I dont believe I'll ever have a political debate with another American again, but if I do, this is definitely a quotable closer!
The extreme lefties annoy me, the extreme righties terrify me.
what do you define as extreme left? technically thats communism and anarchism. who is advocating for them now? people just call anything they dont like the far left. trans issues isnt anything to do with the left, let it gets put there by some etc. the left is purely about worker power and not oligarch power. people put too much nonsense on the left.
Exactly, and that's a really concise way of putting it.
Tankies piss me off with how annoying they are, Nazis piss me off because they’re evil.
Yeah, better be annoyed by us far lefties, then being hunted by the righties: ;)
may ask what you consider an extreme left view
As a socialist, these are the critiques (practicality-focused) that I find productive and good. Your critique of horseshoe theory and your very reasonable and fair addressing of the USSR and authoritarianism was great as well. Really great work.
A perfect socialist utopia may be an impossible dream - but that does not make the quest for it any less noble.
@@LadyDoomsingerwell socialism is definitely not impossible. We can discuss communism, but outright claim socialism is impossible is counter productive. Socialism is no less possible than capitalism seemed during fuedalism.
This right here is therapeutic. We need to hear this kind of commentary more in political discourse.
There is a contingent in society that is quit simply put, parasitic, the largest portion of which is in the right. It's plain to see for anyone who is intellectually honest that right wing ideology is about maintaining oppressive hierarchical systems that only benefit the most fortunate. It's just not designed to help anyone out accept those that don't need the help.
PS: You have a new subscriber. Love your work. 👏👏👏
Perfect. False equivalency is the comfortable babble of the lazy mind
"pretending they're the same doesn't make you a bold iconoclast, it makes you a fucking doofus" indeed
@@GPantazis
And, ironically, a tool of extremism.
Authoritarianism is a feature of the far right, not a bug.
you should like at some leftists throughout history they love totalitarianism.
It's a feature of both
@@samuelmerkel2888
Depends on how far you go on the left, tbf. You go anywhere past basic conservatism on the right, however, and you get just more and more blatant authoritarianism.
Its in the interests of leftists to stop rightoid reactionaries from coming into power and to do so requires force since rightoids love to use force themselves
Left wing authoritarianism is a bug. Right wing authoritarianism is a feature.
As many have already said, what's often called "far left" in this country is center, and simply decent. When I hear certain people like Manchin being called a "centrist Democrat," I want to throw heavy objects at the TV or wherever I'm hearing it.
If we do go a bit further LEFT than we have in many years, and if they are successful in getting things done (not constantly blocked by the far right . . .) we'd have
Heavier taxes and less loopholes for the wealthiest Americans and big corporations.
More regulations of industry to curb monopolies, keep workers and consumers safer, have better environmental policies, etc.
Have sane gun laws, banning the most dangerous guns, stronger background checks and waiting periods, and maybe even a requirement to know how to use it correctly and to make sure it's kept safe.
Have better social programs, to help people who may fall through the cracks.
More equality for everyone, no matter what the ethnic background, race, sexual orientation, gender identity.
Make more things public, such as internet, education, and healthcare. Hopefully abolish things like for-profit prisons.
Make knowledge and information more available and factual, strengthening school, colleges and libraries and making them more accessible to everyone.
Making sure there's no such thing as "too big to fail" businesses.
Absolute separation of church and state, though I don't think they'd do things like not allow Christmas decorations in schools and whatnot. Secular people enjoy those too. It would be more about not making LAWS based on a particular religion's beliefs.
As someone who lives at Brazil, a country that recently scaped from a fascist nightmare (but still is being haunted by the far right), I just loved this video.
I feel you, but we aren't really out of the woods yet. The vice-president eagerly wants to legalize slaves here just as they are legal in the USA - with private prisions. And the actual president doesn't seem too keen in stopping him. We're the fourth country in incarcerated population in the WORLD. This is absurdly worrying
From the point of view of a British person. America does not have a left wing party. The Democrats is a sort of centre party with some left wingers and centre right wingers. Then you have the Republicans who are very right wing including wanabee square heads.
The GOP is just fascist at this point.
The republicans are a Conservative Liberal party while Republican politicians are far right
From the point of view of a Canadian, I agree with you. The closest the US has every had a successful left wing party was the old Republicans with Lincoln and Teddy Roosevelt and even then it wasn't really left wing
Funny this because labour right now is more right wing than democrats I can say. Joe Manchun would fit right in with labour and not even be the most right wing. Republican are just full on fascists. Democrats are anywhere from centre right joe Manchin to socdem squad. Joe Biden is centre left at this point in time I would say. The things he has done with unions for example.
@@acanadianchickenI would say the democrats have moved to the left in the 21st century and they are more left than they have been for a long time. I would say Biden is more left wing than Trudeau honestly.
As a person on the very far left, I just had to comment on how much I love this video!! I couldn't have said it better!! Thank you, Steve! You're a f*cking genius! 👏👏👏
This reminds me about something I had always thought about which is the difference between someone supporting fascism and someone supporting communism. Both are extreme idealogues that I don’t support but there’s a big difference between the two. Fascism is an inherently racist ideology and communism isn’t.
no country has ever been communist anyway. they always end up with a dictator which is the antithesis of what communism is. then they get used as why communism is bad. arghhh
Fascism is an inherently *authoritarian* ideology - communism is not.
When a communist state becomes authoritarian, it's because something went wrong; when a fascist state goes authoritarian it's running as intended.
Preach it! I had an exchange about the national debt and it's unprecedented size and growth on the book of faces recently, where I complained that the GOP was complete hypocrites on fiscal responsibility and one of my old high school friends said "kind of one-sided aren't you?" And I said, yeah, there is one side that talks a big game about how our debt is such a terrible thing and then the one time they could have reduced it, they instead decided to cut taxes. I may not agree with how much the Democrats like to spend, but at least the things they want to spend money on actually help people. The Republicans pretend to care about the deficit and debt, but it's only in service to their real agenda, tax cuts for rich people.
Yup, the debt to GDP ratio usually goes down with Democrat presidents. Robert Reich has good videos on this.
Omg I was like what's the "book of faces" is that a new one coming out since Musk ruined Twitter? Why haven't I heard of this "book of faces"?
Lol sorry blonde moment
I SO wish people would realize this. Conservatives spend just as much. The only difference is that when the "left" spends, working class people get things. When the right spends, we somehow end up with less.
Either way there's spending but one side spends on families. The other gives the money directly to other rich effers.
Hi Steve. Thanks for your insights regarding a very delicate matter.
I lived in Argentina as a pre-teen a teenager years and growing up in a military far right government was absolutely terrifying. People were abducted and murdered just because they were MUSICIANS, where having a beard or long hair was enough cause for getting arrested, beat up and throw into a mass grave. No constitution. They have this thing called "Proceso de reorganización nacional" (national reorganization process, a guideline to murder and hate) and it was put there in schools and work places and it was all by DESIGN. The consequences are still reverberating and to this day i can't go back there with feeling either safe or in peace. I'm spirituality exiled. And recent developments have just reaffirmed my very firm decision not to go back. EVER. Far right is a venom and when it sets, it stays. I'm 100% with you. I really hope that free thinking spirits can, in time, drain that poison from the minds and souls of all humanity.
In memory of the 35000 (just in a few years, many many friends and families of them) dead from that ugly ideology.
Love will prevail, if we love
Sympathies extended. 💔
Thank you, Tomas.
Thanks for sharing that. I'm an American and live in an region dominated by Republicans. I really don't think "conservative" America recognizes the harmful, violent, extreme behavior that "normal" people are capable of committing. The de-humanization of the "other" starts one down a very dangerous path.
Yep, one of my favorite comic book writers of all time, HG Oesterheld, was a victim of that regime along with his entire family.
Dang, it's a good thing no country has killed even more people using far left ideologies.
Wait a second................it's almost like evil people can exist on both sides. No, that can't be right.
When I went for my gun licence in Alberta (strictly for museum handling purposes) the instructor was a self-professed libertarian who used the class as a platform for his, well, unique views. For example, he said we had "too many laws"-to which I thought, how do you judge that? How many is too many? Is there a number to attach to that? Aren't most laws the result of someone doing something that common sense would suggest not doing? And shouldn't a weapon, a machine designed specifically to kill, be highly regulated? Guns didn't originate for sport, after all. His other beef was that pistols were more regulated than long guns, despite not having the stopping power of a rifle or shotgun. He just couldn't understand this, and considered it an example of liberal irrationalism and government intrusion. But I thought, well, crimes are easier to commit with a concealed weapon, obviously, how could he not see that?
Needless to say I just kept my thoughts to myself.
The characteristic difference between the American Left Voter and the American Right Voter can be summarized in how they think a homeless person should get access to shelter.
I’ve never met a leftist who didn’t think there should be systemic assistance for homeless people and I’ve never met a righty who didn’t think the homeless person should work their way out of poverty.
At the end of the day, which ‘side’ do you think comes across as more empathetic?
I know this language is a little harsh, but i once heard "you can't argue with a stupid person, they will bring you down to their level and beat you with experience." This is how i feel talking to far right wingers 😢
When my dad starts spouting far right botspeak, I go grey rock until he changes the subject.
Honestly the problem is they feel the same way talking to you. So at the end, nothing changes
Innuendo Studios had a wonderful series on the subject.
I think the core of the issue is the fact that conservative and right-wing ideologies all subscribe to the idea that societies should look more or less like pyramids while preferred model of society in a left-wing worldview looks like a pancake.
always happy to see folk promoting innuendo studios' videos on the alt right / fascism / etc.
The Alt-Right Playbook: Always a Bigger Fish
I think many leftists who aren't authoritarian or anarchist want like, a very democratic pyramid (just in terms of leadership) in which the leaders are also held accountable and can be removed when necessary. Big societies need some people making sure the right amount of resources are made and distributed well.
The alt right playbook helped a lot
The left wants equality, the right wants control. Which would you rather live in?
This guy gets it!
It always amazes me how much people who whine about freedom and rights can’t stand seeing other people expressing their freedom or exercising their rights.
I get annoyed when people claim "they're all as bad as each other" in relation to politicians. No, they're not & claiming they are let's the really shitty ones away with too much
People are well within their rights to be chronically frustrated with the Democratic Party, but the politician who sheepishly or shoves you aside is still different from the politician who fantasizes about your suffering and has thus made it a major feature of their political platform.
It’s such a lazy way to say I don’t follow politics 😂
@@dinosaysrawr Amen.
Well, the Far Left want universal healthcare and a higher minimum wage, whereas the Far Right contains literal, _actual_ Nazis. It's "we want to treat humans with dignity" VS "we want to pin the blame on minorities and then kill them."
That's not even a choice, that's a test to see if you're evil.
@@tezman201 @purple_kathryn
Ever heard of Gore Vidal, Eugene Debs, Hunter S. Thompson, or Henry Wallace? You guys think they were lazy folks who didn't follow politics? There are literally hundreds more highly esteemed figures that pointed out the racket that is the corporate duopoly. You feel the way you do because the way you follow politics is to listen to the duopoly's propaganda on MSM, just like Republicans.
The far left haven’t demonstrated their love of violence and cultish tendencies the way the far right have.
Far left makes mistakes and takes note. Far right kills and denies.
Well to be fair they have too, it’s just far far more rare and scarce compared to the overwhelming abundance of right wing violent cults throughout history
Or at least, not in Steve's lifetime. It got wild earlier for a little while there.
Generally (though obviously not universally, *cough* RAF *cough*) when the extreme left gets violent, cars burn and shop windows get smashed in. When the extreme right gets violent, people die.
True...and they don't seem to have a break from reality when people on the left are held accountable or even lose an election.
Imagine if people applied this false equivalency in other areas. "Oh, so you get mad when I point the barrel of the gun at people but someone over there is pointing the stock of the gun at people and you aren't currently criticizing them!"
When I hear people say They are both the same” - think immediately that they do not know anything about modern politics. I know this because I used to say the same thing when I was not paying attention to politics.
For me the difference between the far left and the far right is very simple: One wants to ensure that everyone is given basic human rights and that everyone is allowed to live as their authentic selves and the other wants to commit genocide against those they deem to be lesser than them. Is it any wonder why I support one and not the other?
The both want to give human rights to everyone; the latter just wants to limit who is considered "human" to begin with...
Playing Devil's Advocate for a second, but as Steve admits, there have been plenty of 'leftist' figures and schools of thought throughout history that have been entirely comfortable with genocide: Stalin, Mao, Pol Pot, three generations (and counting) of the Kim family, to name but a few. Doctrinaire is doctrinaire, no matter which side of the political divide you are on. The US definition of far left politicians (which as a non US citizen I would guess is the likes of Bernie Sanders and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez) are practically centrist by non US standards. I say this as someone who would be considered, by most Americans, to be rabidly left wing (although that is a label I would reject).
But then there are economic models as well... and if you interpret far-left as Communism things won't be so rosy anymore. You can broadly defend what you wrote under social democracy.
@@soundscape26 Authoritarian dictatorships that call themselves 'socialist' or 'communist', are not actually socialist or communist, and thus are not 'far-left'. The only true communism is anarchist communism, since the definition of communism and the definition of anarchism are exactly the same. You could almost say it's redundant to say 'anarchist communist', except that there are so many tendencies among both communism and anarchism that it helps to say 'anarchist communism' just to differentiate oneself from other types of anarchism or communism. But as an anarchist communist, I don't consider any authoritarian regime to be part of the left at all. 'Tankies' (a.k.a. apologists for authoritarian regimes that call themselves 'socialist' and 'communist') are not part of the left, they're red fascists.
@@Krantzstone "Guys real socialism/communism has never been tried. I'm SERIOUS GUYS! COME ON!!!"
Truth is, those that say "Both sides are the same" are just internet edgelords trying to get a rise out of both sets of people.
It may be now, but that lazy line was going around long before the internet existed.
@@robertmiller9735 literally started by neo-nazis after the waco incident in order to attempt to recruit people.
They are also right-wing proagandists trying to demoralise those who would vote against them, so they don't vote and let the right-wingers win.
Incorrect. I’ve heard directly from a coworker and one of parents the “both sides” way of thinking. Educated, non-troll real people - there are plenty of folks out there who simply aren’t paying attention or actively avoiding how things have changed over the last 15 years or so.
@@TrueYellowDartyeah it's generally this. Many of the "both sides" people I've run into don't actively participate in politics, and claiming "both sides" is their way of feeling smarter than anyone because they feel they've figured out the life hack of political discourse. You'd be hard pressed for them to provide specific examples of how they know both sides are equally bad.
OMG thank you! Been saying this for years but you also have to be "nice" about it so you don't get shut down, asked to the leave etc. Sometimes you do just need to scream this into a microphone for the world to hear, because it is obvious and yes it IS a BIG DEAL!
I’m a gay atheist with an incurable, life-threatening autoimmune disease that I’ve had since childhood. Nearly everything that the far right espouses is a threat to my life and freedom. That’s not hyperbole.
I was born in the 1960s and have lived the majority of my life without the same rights as heterosexuals. Gay sex was a CRIME in Texas until 2003. Those laws are actually still in the state’s constitution; they’re just not currently enforceable. A single Supreme Court ruling could change that.
The far-right ideas that the poor don’t deserve affordable healthcare, that sick people don’t deserve protection, and that for-profit healthcare is the only kind that works is literally a threat to my life. The medication I require to stay alive costs about $6,000 a month at retail prices. I had decent health insurance until about a decade ago, when I got really sick and nearly died. I spent a couple of months in the hospital. I was fired from my job for being unable to work, and I lost my health insurance. I paid for COBRA for as long as I could, but I ran out of money and went through all my savings and ended up losing my health insurance. I was without it for two years. I didn’t qualify for Medicaid in Texas because I had no children and was capable of working, per them. Similarly, I was denied for SSI Disability twice for the same reason.
I had to survive using free samples of medication from doctor’s offices, expired medication that medical facilities couldn’t by law administer to patients, and less-effective, older drugs that hadn’t been used to treat my disease since the 1980s. I ended up almost dying again because I couldn’t get the $6,000/month medication. (And the drug companies lie when they say they help people who can’t afford their medication. They refused to help. They’d send a coupon for $25 off my monthly co-pay, but no insurance means no co-pay. It was utterly ridiculous.)
I’ve been with my husband since the 1990s, but we didn’t have the right to marry until 2015. That right could get taken away at any time if a case goes to the Supreme Court. The far right WANTS my rights to be taken away. I’m not human to them.
As an atheist, I don’t want to have to live under the rules of the right’s superstitions. They are free to believe whatever stupidity they want, but I don’t want to be forced to live by their rules. I want to be free to have sex with any consenting adult of my choosing. I want to be able to view or read materials about any subject that doesn’t involve harming anyone to create. I want everyone to have their sexual and gender identities recognized under law. I want women to have full bodily autonomy. I want children to be educated about science and facts, not about myths and fairy tales that they’re told are "true."
The left: Please be respectful of others and use everyone’s preferred pronouns.
The right: Doctors should be jailed for treating trans people.
The left: The police shouldn’t kill persons of color.
The right: There can’t be any limits on who buys weapons or how many and how lethal those weapons are.
The left: People shouldn’t have to go bankrupt because they got cancer.
The right: Too bad if you get sick. Guess you’ll die. It’s our imaginary friend’s plan.
The left: Everyone deserves to have the same rights.
The right: Only white, straight, cis, Christian males deserve rights. Everyone else can go f**k themselves.
I was a bit wary of the title, but god damn you're so well spoken about these topics. It's tough to distill the fundamental differences between the two ideological extremes, but taking them to their practical ends and examining the world they want is really effective. "We're not the same" rings so true here
9 seconds in and you hit the nail on the head my father is Hardcore Republican and I watch them spiral but my mother is anything but but that poisonous false equivalency BS has made it so I can't have any conversations with her because she was brought up to look at both sides ant treat them the same
How can you ever be hardcore Repub post Nixon, post Reagan, post both Bushes and post Sarah Palin
@@ninab.4540Willful ignorance.
I mean...if you believe that the common people should be treated fairly, control the means of production, and that a handful of rich people should _not_ be able to get fat by abusing the workers, then you typically just don't have the motivation to start a genocide or something like that. Can it happen? Sure. But...that can happen in ANY political system. It's not a Socialism issue, it's a "human beings kinda suck" issue.
I'm glad you're not excluding me - mind you, I'm the British far left, which is right off the scale in the US.
The difference is the implicit mindset of the right and left. The right sees society as inherently hierarchical. They see the natural organization of society as a pyramid with the few people at the top getting most of the benefits and having most of the power. The left tends to see society's natural organization is more horizontal with everyone sharing equally in opportunity and power. So... Yeah, I have a LOT less problems with the far left than I do with the far right.
This is a great distillation of the difference between right and left.
What boggles my mind is how many of them are willing to stay at the bottom as long as the illusion of anyone being able to make it to the top is maintained.
Two words... unjustified hierarchies
@@Average_Bradnah, they don't think they're at the bottom. But they do generally suffer from last place aversion, so any attempt to improve the material lives of people they view as beneath them is met with extreme resistance.
@@michaelwrooker left = worker power, right = oligarch power. simple as that.
Steve, thank you for putting out this video. You've been a big proponent in leading my out of the embarrassing phase at 18yo thinking Ben Shapiro and Peterson were "thought gods" to where I am now as a 26yo. I've been watching Star Trek almost religiously since I was 13, but it took so long for me to pull me head out of the sand, and I'm so glad that it's thru Star Trek and your general compassion for life that helped to allow me to grow to where I am. I started watching this channel and subscribed long enough ago I cant even remember.
Could not possibly thank you enough for also helping to pull my head out of the cringy, crusted ass hole that is the "trekie fan boy circle jerk." So I've also grown a lot in that regard. To hell with canon! This remains one of very few "Trek" channels I actively watch because I don't feel like I got creamed all over at the end of the videos. Your critique and insights are fascinating, educational, fun and entertaining.
I appreciate all that you do!
I get the feeling that Trekkies and Trekkers tend to be more utopian, generally speaking, than society at large, especially if they've actively processed what they were watching.
“To hell with canon” … that pretty much sums up your new mindset😂
Wow, this is well beyond good. It's terrific.
I didn't decide one day to become a Democrat or a leftist. I was raised by an extremely religious, very conservative family in the bible belt.
As I got older and learned how to utilize deductive reasoning and critical thinking skills, when I learned to seek undeniable facts without caring where those facts led me, it was then that it became abundantly clear that the left, with all its faults and failings, is exponentially more scientific, fact driven, reasonable, honest and ethical than the right ...and it's not remotely close.
Far Right on the hungry & homeless. If a man does not work nor shall he eat.
Far Left on the hungry & homeless. Hey everyone has a human right to food & shelter.
Ummmm yeah obviously both exactly the same.
I used to say both sides were the same because that’s what everybody around me would say. That and other rhetoric stopped me from voting. At some point I woke up, educated myself, and my political leaning shifted from “centrist” to solidly left. Now when people say the same things, I think they are being willfully ignorant or trying to appease people who lean right. It’s so frustrating. Going to just start pulling out this video and save myself some breath in the future
Speaking as a self described "centrist", the republican party isn't anywhere close to the center. In my youth I would occasionally vote for a republican but those moderate republicans might as well not be in the party any more since they can't make it through a primary. The republicans have just gone right off the rails to the right openly courting groups that would have been shunned back when I started voting. The democrats used to be kind of to the left of me (I have always been more of a democrat than a republican), and over the course of time there are some groups that have gone farther left (progressives), but they haven't really gone that far. At least they aren't espousing the greatness of Pol Pot or Stalin like their analogs on the right... and if they did, they would be kicked to the curb.
Being a centrist means being a democrat today. No one else is even competing for the middle.
to a european you are likely only centre left anyway, so distorted is the USA's view of politics.
@@deadstump4970 in reality the USA has no left. its just the GOP are so far right now it skews the whole picture. dems are centre right on most issues. america doesnt really comprehend what the left is. its a boogeyman to rednecks.
Yeah anyone claiming to be a centrist at this point is either completely ignorant or just trying to hide the fact that they are actually just conservative. The center point between 2 right wing parties is still right wing that's true but in the face of that harm reduction should be what guides your vote and there is only one choice that makes any sense.
Ive been trying to have this convo with so called moderate friends and family for years and it's near impossible to get through to them. In my experience people who think like that feel superior like they rise above the fray and everyone else is just arguing and being petty.
They actually think you're being pretentious, when it's they who are happy to know nothing and be very opinionated about it
@@futurestoryteller A large portion of the 'moderates' or 'swing voters' are not actually middle-of-the-road. What they are is disengaged from politics and news. They score low on quizzes regarding politicians, world leaders, laws, economics, etc. and seem to use their 'moderate' label as a way to avoid showing their limited knowledge. This means they don't know who really represents their interests and often go with the crowd or skip voting entirely.
I'm a moderate and I think what you'll find is simply a difference in methodology. Most moderates know the extreme right is WAY more dangerous. Hence why Trump keeps losing despite is tantrums.
The reason moderates are more "tolerant" of the right is not to show support of it. It's that we believe we must be seen as less biased inherently if we are going to convince anyone on the right of their errors. People on the right will not listen to anyone on the left because of what they view as overwhelming bias and corruption (justified or otherwise). So to be moderate and willing to criticize the left when it is warranted - especially in front of right wingers - is to invoke a sense of understanding and credibility to the right... thereby hopefully earning some influence.
Basically.... the left can be right.... moderates prefer to be persuasive.
@@robertbeste I'm not going to say you shouldn't, or that you can't _try_ to convince the far right to be less genocidal... but it's largely wasted effort since people on the far right are on the far right because they are ideological fascists who believe in genociding anyone who is not them. That's not a 'difference of opinion', it's a fundamental difference in core values and world view, but particularly in respect to other people having the right to simply exist.
But hey, if you can convince a Nazi to stop being a Nazi, great: one less Nazi. I'd _rather_ talk Nazis out of being Nazis if I can, and I will try if they have never actually acted on their beliefs and are expressing a desire to leave the far right.
But sadly, as Karl Popper points out in the Paradox of Tolerance:
"But we should claim the right to suppress them if necessary even by force; for it may easily turn out that they are not prepared to meet us on the level of rational argument, but begin by denouncing all argument; they may forbid their followers to listen to rational argument, because it is deceptive, and teach them to answer arguments by the use of their fists or pistols. We should therefore claim, in the name of tolerance, the right not to tolerate the intolerant. We should claim that any movement preaching intolerance places itself outside the law and we should consider incitement to intolerance and persecution as criminal, in the same way as we should consider incitement to murder, or to kidnapping, or to the revival of the slave trade, as criminal."
If you're not prepared to shoot Nazis when you can't convince them to stop being Nazis, then the Nazis _will_ shoot you.
@@KrantzstoneI love your comment. As a German, I have come to the conclusion that, for those nazis, who will always be nazis, there are only a handful of solutions => 👊🔪🎯💉🪓💣😵⚰️
Thank u for saying what ive always felt its weird that ppl dont think critically about something so important that affects them and their families
"Peter's theory of mutual aid came to him in the most unlikely of places. To follow in the footsteps of his hero, Alexander von Humboldt, when he was twenty years old, Kropotkin began a series of expeditions in Siberia. At that point, he was already an avowed evolutionary biologist-one of the few in Russia-and a great admirer of Darwin and his theory of natural selection. Fifty thousand miles later, and five years the wiser, Kropotkin left Siberia a Darwinian. But he was a very different kind of evolutionary biologist: a new species of sort. For in Siberia, Kropotkin had not found what he had expected to find. Though still in its early gestation period when Kropotkin began his journey through Siberia, evolutionary theory of the day advanced that the natural world was a brutal place: competition was the driving force. And so, in the icy wilderness, Peter expected to witness nature red in tooth and claw. He searched for it. He studied flocks of migrating birds and mammals, fish schools, and insect societies.
What he found was that competition was virtually nonexistent. Instead, in every nook and cranny of the animal world, he encountered mutual aid. Individuals huddled for warmth, fed one another, and guarded their groups from danger, all seeming to be cogs in a larger cooperative society. "In all the scenes of animal lives which passed before my eyes," Kropotkin wrote, "I saw mutual aid and mutual support carried on to an extent which made me suspect in it a feature of the greatest importance for the maintenance of life, the preservation of each species and its further evolution."
Kropotkin didn't limit his studies to animals alone. He cherished his time in peasant villages, with their sense of community and cooperation: in these small Siberian villages, Kropotkin began to understand "the inner springs of the life of human society." There, by observing "the constructive work of the unknown masses," the young scientist witnessed human cooperation and altruism in its purest form.
The conflict then arose in trying to align his observations with Darwinian theory. While he might easily have abandoned evolutionary thinking altogether, joining many other Russian scientists in dismissing Darwin's ideas as nothing more than Victorian smoke and mirrors, Kropotkin understood that evolutionary thinking could explain the diversity of life he saw around him. And so he set up the tightrope on which he would balance for the rest of his life.
He advocated that natural selection was the driving force that shaped life, but that Darwin's ideas had been perverted and misrepresented by British scientists. Natural selection, Kropotkin argued, led to mutual aid, not competition, among individuals. Natural selection favored societies in which mutual aid thrived, and individuals in these societies had an innate predisposition to mutual aid because natural selection had favored such actions. Kropotkin even coined a new scientific term-progressive evolution-to describe how mutual aid became the sine qua non of all societal life-animal and human. Years later, with the help of others, Kropotkin would formalize the idea that mutual aid was a biological law, with many implications, but the seeds were first sown in Siberia.
From the Siberian tundra, Kropotkin's thinking turned to the political implications of mutual aid. The ants and termites, the birds, the fish and the mammals were cooperating in the absence of any formal organizational structure-that is without any form of "government." The same was true in the peasant villages, where mutual aid abounded, but a centralized government structure was nowhere to be seen.
Kropotkin sensed great similarities with the writings of anarchists, which he had taken to covertly as a teenager. Leave people with complete freedom and autonomy, Peter had read in the anarchist literature, and they will naturally cooperate. In Siberia, Kropotkin had discovered this to be true not only for humans, but for all species that lived in groups. What marked so much in the natural world could surely help in politics and society.
"I lost in Siberia," Kropotkin would write," whatever faith in State discipline I had cherished before: I was prepared to become an anarchist." Peter became so convinced that his scientific findings on mutual aid explained the biological underpinnings of political anarchy, that years after his trek through Siberia, he wrote in his obituary for Charles Darwin that, properly understood, Darwin's theories were "an excellent argument that animal societies are best organized in the communist-anarchist manner."
In time, Kropotkin's ideas on the science of mutual aid would lead to his rise as the most famous anarchist of his day. Kropotkin today retains his moniker as a key founder of anarchist principles. And for more than 80 years-until about the 1960s-Kropotkin's ideas on mutual aid played a prominent, critical role in the study of behavior and evolution. And during that same period, the Prince's book-length treatments on ethics, geology, history and literature had a huge impact not only on those fields, but on areas as diverse as city planning, communist ideology and the modern "green" movement."
- excerpted from The Prince of Evolution: Peter Kropotkin's Adventures in Science and Politics by Lee Alan Dugatkin.
"Left wing extremist; right wing extremist - I see no difference.", "For sure there is one", says the kangaroo, "left extremists burn cars, right extremists burn foreigners. And this makes the left extremists worse, because the car could belong to me. Foreigners, on the other hand, I don't own any"
German comedian Mark Uwe Kling in "the Kangaroo Chronicles"
I believe the ECONOMIC commonality between the 'left and right' is far more greater than any of the Social differences between the two.
It's not left vs right, but top vs bottom
It's not Democrats vs Republicans, it's the people/working class vs owners (ceos and elite shareholders)
It's not Red vs Blue, it's the 1% vs you (us)
When the American people put their differences aside to focus on economic problems and deal with the wealthy ruling elite, I believe many of our "social problems and differences" will become clearer.
Just remember: Don’t take “Eat the Rich” too literally. They are full of chemical additives and plastics, they’re terrible for you.
The problem is that republicans all think they’re going to be millionaires and billionaires some day so they vote accordingly.
It's probably a combination of those things more than anything. It's definitely left vs. right. It's also top vs. bottom. There are many reasons for both arguments to be reasonably and logically made. It's not just one thing and doesn't have to be settled or described as just one thing.
What you said is a solid summation of the economic thought of the left, though. At least, the portion of the left that's further left than self-described "centrists" and social democrats.
The right also discusses the wealthy ruling elite. They claim that Trump can't possibly be a part of it, and they only believe leftists and democrats are of that class.
They claim that the ruling elite wants to destroy the nuclear family and subvert their values by promoting "gender ideology".
So, you're right, but you're also wrong. Many MANY people think that economic and social issues are intrinsically linked, including people on the right. The rightwingers, however, have embroiled all that in with conspiracy theories, and want to conform everyone to the ideals they THEY THINK are the CORRECT ones. The politicians, the elite, stoke the flames of their ignorance, and their constituents eat it up, and regular neighbors on the ground pour gasoline on their hatred of "the other".
It makes me sad that we live in a time and age when these things actually have to be explained. Either has indoctrination become so powerful that people have been brainwashed to forget their class (and what that even means), or hatred among ones own people became so strong that they just don't care as long as they can vent it somewhere. In either case progressives lost a huge deal in the communication game, and I just hope we are able to win it back fast enough.
I've come across this situation quite often, where a person will argue about how much better the Republican Party is. How they care so much more for the "Average" American, taxes, taxes, taxes etc. However, when you question them a little further, they don't actually know the "politics" behind what they're saying and have no idea who these things are actually geared toward. Nor do they seem to know who their representatives are. Then when you really get into it, they admit that they are only "Republican" because that is who they have been taught to vote for. Who their dads have voted for their entire lives, and they themselves actually have no idea why.
That was me, 35 years ago. I fell for the boilerplate and slogans, and never actually bothered to look at policy. One night at work, an attorney was at my bar and I was just regurgitating some talking points. He challenged me on them. It was kind of a shock, but I'd spoken with him on many occasions and I respected him. I didn't have cognitive dissonance, and I didn't go into defensive mode. I actually considered his objections, and he turned out to be correct.
The question was "can the private sector do it better than the government". I'd been listening to right wingers without considering the possibility of rent seeking. Private prisons and charter schools, for example. They aren't better. They're for profit, and they cut corners. And, it doesn't save us a dime because as soon as they get the contract, they lobby for higher pay (for the shareholders), and often get it, while treating their employees considerably worse than their public sector equivalents. It was a scam all along to funnel tax money to their donor friends.
it's so validating to hear someone say this you have no idea
4:11-4:28 Damn, that is the shortest and most effective roast of Libertarians I’ve ever seen. Good work.
I love the saying that goes “Libertarians are like house cats- convinced of their fierce independence yet completely reliant on the system they don’t appreciate or understand.”
@@athenaclark2567 Wow. That’s a really good saying. Thank you.
Thank you. I've been thinking this for weeks but couldn't find the right words to describe it. This is wonderfully said. Far leftists make me roll my eyes. Far righters make me concerned for the well-being of far too many people.
One side believes that I deserve basic human rights, the other just had a group of government officials release a 900 page manifesto that includes "great" policies planned if they win the presidential election such as: federal level "don't say gay" law and total ban on abortion, and complete dissolution of state's rights that allow the federal government to prosecute anybody they want, including state officials they believe are in violation of said proposed laws. Oh, and their current favorite nominee has promised to enact the Insurrection Act as soon as he's in office to allow military retaliation against protesters.
These are not the same. We fought a war over this. The whole world was involved.
Steve, this is the most intelligent description of our political system I have heard since I left collage 60 yrs ago. Thank you you have made my day! Live long and prosper.
Couldn't have said it better myself if I tried
This was incredibly well put together. Thanks for articulating exactly why I'm personally so deeply anti-centrist. Both sides have problems, but only one is proud of them.
Thank you, Steve. I am a pediatrician in Missouri, and for decades I have been very involved in health care advocacy for children, primarily at the state level, including through leadership in a statewide professional organization dedicated to assuring that all children and adolescents have access to quality, affordable health care. This organization is, in its charter, non-partisan.
However, when it comes time to go to Jefferson City to talk to legislators about policies and statutory measures that we endorse because they would benefit Missouri's children, the vast majority of these proposals come from Democrats. Rough estimate: 95%. Further, when it comes to proposed legislation that would hurt children, whether through reducing eligibility for food assistance programs, allowing open carry of guns in schools, or eliminating requirements for vaccination, I cannot think of a single proposal that did not come from the GOP.
We get accused of being "partisan." We are not. We do not favor one party over the other. We are, however, pro-child. If you want us to endorse your policy proposals, you might consider crafting them so that children and their parents will not have to worry about kids being safe at school, having enough to eat, or being able to see a doctor and get vaccinated so they can survive till adulthood.
Damn the far left and their *checks notes* genuinely wanting what's best for everyone..!
I mean, for billionaires who built their entire fortunes off of exploitation, the idea of a system where everyone is actually treated fairly is about the scariest thing imaginable. And those same billionaires spend a lot of money on add campaigns to brainwash the masses who would actually benefit from robust social policies to be just as scared.
Even sixty years ago when both parties were closer together than now (e.g., it was possible for a candidate to be a liberal Republican), there were still clear differences. The false equivalency is IMHO a rationalization for either not voting or not supporting progressive initiatives.
Heck, it wasn't even 15 years ago when you could still find blue Republicans. No longer.
Both likely explanations, but I'd also toss in the belief that cynicism is somehow correlated with intelligence.
some neolibs are super scared of socialism due to indoctrination during red scare
Most true progressives aren't liberal anymore. They believe that the ends they want cannot be accomplished through liberal means, and instead would go for more authoritarianism to achieve the "correct" world.
Every American owes it to themselves to actually watch C-Span and actually read or seek to understand what laws are being proposed and passed by each party.
Rather than rely on whatever media you choose to get your news from take the time to understand who is passing what laws.
I think a major contributing factor to the political landscape we have today is the fact that everyone learns about the Holocaust in school from an incredibly young age, but curriculum completely skims over communist dictators like Joseph Stalin, Pol Pot, or Mao Zedong, the last of which killed more people than five Hitlers combined, but still probably couldn't be picked out of a police line up by 99% of highschool students. We are correct to fear the results of far right policy left unchecked, but to say the far left isn't playing with the same stakes can be debunked simply by opening any world history textbook.
I'm sensing a Sam Cedar fan. Good breakdown. False equivalence is so frustrating to deal with cause it feels so disingenuous.
Hugo from bobs burgers fan you mean
Seder.
The worst excesses of the far right is systemic racism, callousness towards the poor, and war mongering; while the worst excess of the far left is Gal Gadot singing Kumbaya translated into Na'vi while cosplaying Avitar.
Are you sure Gal Gadot or her actions are a good representation of the far left?
@@reallyWyrd I'm only warning about the dangers.
As a latine anarchist whose political practices are rooted in indigenous values (and therefore considered as far to the left as possible), I often struggle to get people to understand that the most radical thing involving this everyday political practice is just the values of "humans are part of the environment" and "people over paperwork." There are many people who depend on community, not power structures, to live, and it's for them that anarchists often come to support most immediately. I don't have the time and energy to beef with fellow leftists because at the end of the day, we all just want everybody to be fed.
Some people don't realize that the political spectrum is not a single axis line (x in math terms). There is also the Authoritarian vs Libertarian axis line (y in math) and there's other nuances. I'm just glad you mentioned that both leggy and right can be authoritarians, even if that isn't what we're seeing in our current climate.
When I imagine the far-right winning/dominating, I think about "The Handmaid's Tale".
“Both parties are the same”
“So you’ll vote Democrat next time?”
“…”
You need to be holding mic when you say this so that you can drop it.
I don't recall Democrats of post civil rights era ever trying to coup a government THEY WON
Im voting CPUSA
In the US, I'd be considered "far left." In most of Europe, I'd be considered a reasonable person a little be left of center.
The US far right is insanely far right.
We worship money and celebrities here.
Something that I think is revealing about the way of thinking by folks on the further right of the spectrum, is when they confront you with the typical whataboutisms, like pointing out instances of racism against whites, sexism against men, or excessive consumption and spending by green-activists.
If we're being generous and take those fallacies as good faith arguments, it suggests that they are more worried that their perceived in-group/out-group membership is threatened to be flipped around, but that the inherent "badness" of racism, sexism and excessive consumption is accepted.
It's like a kid being angry at a sibling for stuffing themselves with candy before dinner. Its not that they care about the health of their sibling, they want also to stuff themselves with candy.
Saying that Republicans and Democrats are exactly the same is gas-lighting. It's usually said by people that lean to the right.
If anything it's said more often by people on the left, although when people on the left say that it enables the right
@@aristotleasparaguspodcast1129
If you really think playground level shouting of "is/isn't ' is a sensible political discussion then I'm guessing you haven't studied much and therefore probably dumb enough to vote right wing
@@aristotleasparaguspodcast1129Not anymore. Biden knows to lean towards MAGA is going to lead to a new CW that's why he addresses them and the politicians provoking far right nonsense. So he's warning people before it's too late. You're on the wrong side, prepare for consequence.
I say that both parties are actually right wing. One just happens to be less, and usually has better policies, but neither are exempt from the shitty behaviors towards their own people and from the opposite party. I'm only left with one choice for the lesser Evil, but all they usually do is end up conceding to R's 9/10 via the both aisle's approach. D's are enablers, R's constantly set the standard for which all is judged by, which ends up relying on tropes for the ill-informed masses. This dynamic allows them to enforce false beliefs of any aggression/forward thinking policies/ mandates / laws as generally not for the people because they are asserting themselves upon everyone, effectively neutering the Left from having any gains, and The D's are happy to oblige to protect corporate profits and their means of production. It's a full-on race to the bottom. Trump and Desantis are just the first taste of what is on the bottom of that barrel, there are more lying in wait.
@@aristotleasparaguspodcast1129 the thing you see leftists say is that dems aren't actually on the left. which is true.
I am so early the worm is still crying itself to sleep
Sauron may be a bad guy, but that Gandalf has done some sketchy stuff too.
I just found your channel and man I'm glad I did because you bring something back to the conversation that makes us believe the false equivalency arguments less and that's called nuance and context. Generally a lot of people want to pretend as though if something is the same on the surface then it's the same underneath. The far left wants to potentially give people a decent wage or decent healthcare, but the far right wants to ban books, label every gay and trans person a predator and take away abortion rights. People need to get back to thinking critically and be skeptical when politicians will tell you something or in a lot of cases media organizations because nine times out of 10 they're not specialists in any particular field, and they always have a motive to make you believe a certain thing. But also don't just believe some conspiracy theorist either