|
lol I never critiqued them from the right
|
#
?
Oct 8, 2017 21:45
|
|
|
|
| # ? May 24, 2024 20:21 |
|
|
It's true that FDR was a liberal, not a leftist. He adopted leftist ideas in crafting the New Deal, and he did it in order to disarm the growing left in the United States at the time. His letters basically say as much. It's also why the New Deal had such a racist element, because you can never trust a drat liberal.
|
|
#
?
Oct 8, 2017 21:50
|
|
|
yronic heroism posted:lol I never critiqued them from the right No, but you routinely criticize those who would bring back the good parts of their legacies from the right.
|
|
#
?
Oct 8, 2017 22:13
|
|
|
Majorian posted:And yet their economic platforms seem unimaginably leftist by today’s standards. No, they don't. what part of the 2016 democratic platform is to the right of the 1964 democratic platform? 1964. http://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/ws/index.php?pid=29603 quote:In 1960, freedom was on the defensive. The Communists—doubting both our strength and our will to use it—pressed forward in Southeast Asia, Latin America, Central Africa and Berlin. quote:The American free enterprise system is one of the great achievements of the human mind and spirit. It has developed by a combination of the energetic efforts of working men and women, bold private initiative, the profit motive and wise public policy, until it is now the productive marvel of mankind. Unimaginably leftist? JeffersonClay fucked around with this message at 22:33 on Oct 8, 2017 |
|
#
?
Oct 8, 2017 22:21
|
|
|
JeffersonClay posted:No, they don't. what part of the 2016 democratic platform is to the right of the 1964 democratic platform? We've explained this to you many, many times, Jeff Clay: the 2016 party platform was largely symbolic, because Hillary Clinton didn't actually run on it, and the last two Democratic presidents haven't tried to implement anything like it. Please stop wasting our time by pursuing arguments that have already been debunked, thanks.
|
|
#
?
Oct 8, 2017 22:36
|
|
|
yronic heroism posted:1. Amusingly, Johnson and Roosevelt weren't leftists. These were liberals who as history would have it had the advantage of large congressional majorities. Dunno if you're replying to my post, but I never said they were leftist. Ambitious social programs are basically a compromise position for some on the left (including myself). You aren't wrong about many people who call themselves "leftists" basically being left-liberals, though. "Leftist" seems to be used to mean two separate things - either "person who is to the left of mainstream Democratic discourse" or "someone who follows some leftist ideology along the lines of socialism, communism, etc that actually entails dismantling capitalism." While I prefer the latter, I understand why others prefer the former; there's a big enough gap between mainstream Democrats and even people who just want to significantly increase taxes on the rich that it's a bit weird to consider them part of the same general ideology. I also didn't speculate on the exact reasons for anti-left liberal posting; I just said "there must be some reason" which is kind of trivially true (people don't spend a bunch of time attacking an ideology or its adherents for no reason). Only a few plausible reasons really come to mind: - Personal dislike of the worst representatives of leftism that bleeds over into a desire to take contrarian views (I believe this is the most common, though even it doesn't really make sense given it's not difficult to find bad representatives of mainstream liberalism - Genuine ideological disagreement, but don't feel comfortable articulating why they disagree (for example, someone who thinks regulated capitalism is genuinely the best option, but doesn't feel they can make the argument convincingly). This is probably the most reasonable motive, though it begs the question of why the person engaged in a discussion in the first place. - Genuine belief that leftists are hurting attempts to fight Republicans. This is probably the second most reasonable motive, even though I think the idea is kind of ridiculous on its face (or implies some nasty things about suppressing dissent). - Rejection of another ideology basically "stealing" the role liberals usually have in American political discourse (this is probably the worst option, and I try to assume that the reason usually isn't actually this petty) - I dunno, maybe they were rejected by a leftist they had a crush on? Like, I honestly can't think of any reason other than these off the top of my head, and folks are totally welcome to explain themselves better. The problem is that we have little to go on, since most of these anti-left posts consist of vague insinuations or selectively only replying to the leftists who make the dumbest posts as if they represent all of leftist/socialist ideology. At least conservatives are up front about their ideological disagreement.
|
|
#
?
Oct 8, 2017 23:48
|
|
|
Majorian posted:We've explained this to you many, many times, Jeff Clay: the 2016 party platform was largely symbolic, because Hillary Clinton didn't actually run on it, and the last two Democratic presidents haven't tried to implement anything like it. Please stop wasting our time by pursuing arguments that have already been debunked, thanks. So by Majorian posted:And yet their economic platforms seem unimaginably leftist by today’s standards. It’s almost as if...the Democrats have moved way to the right, thanks to self-proclaimed “pragmatists” like you. You meant "I don't believe Hillary Clinton". Uh, ok? Did you read the parts I quoted? You can't imagine a democratic platform that's unabashedly capitalist, supports interventions across the world to defeat communism, touts the massive profits of US corporations, defends free enterprise as the greatest invention in the history of the world, and calls for balanced budgets and lower taxes? Maybe you just have a poor understanding of history? JeffersonClay fucked around with this message at 00:14 on Oct 9, 2017 |
|
#
?
Oct 9, 2017 00:12
|
|
|
A lot of what is going on here is assuming that anyone who calls out a shitposter is a "liberal" (whatever that means; I would say Sbernie Sanders is more of a liberal than anything else, so it appears to be little more than a jersey color for these discussions). And if that is true that they are all liberals you could ask why leftists don't police themselves, or if it's not true (and there's not an ideological disagreement) why do the self proclaimed leftists of something awful dot com tolerate anything but calling out their own shitposters.
yronic heroism fucked around with this message at 00:17 on Oct 9, 2017 |
|
#
?
Oct 9, 2017 00:14
|
|
|
JeffersonClay posted:So by Mmmm, nope. I meant, "Clinton didn't run on it, and the last two Democratic presidents didn't implement anything like it." That shouldn't require any further explanation, because these are facts.
|
|
#
?
Oct 9, 2017 00:14
|
|
|
Majorian posted:Mmmm, nope. I meant, "Clinton didn't run on it, and the last two Democratic presidents didn't implement anything like it." That shouldn't require any further explanation, because these are facts. And yet you think Johnson's economic platform, which JeffersonClay posted:supports interventions across the world to defeat communism, touts the massive profits of US corporations, defends free enterprise as the greatest invention in the history of the world, and calls for balanced budgets and lower taxes is unimaginably leftist? I'm not suggesting Clinton, Obama, and Clinton were socialists. I'm suggesting Johnson was a lot further to the right than you'd like to admit.
|
|
#
?
Oct 9, 2017 00:18
|
|
|
yronic heroism posted:A lot of what is going on here is assuming that anyone who calls out a shitposter is a "liberal" (whatever that means; I would say Sbernie Sanders is more of a liberal than anything else, so it appears to be little more than a jersey color for these discussions). And if that is true that they are all liberals you could ask why leftists don't police themselves, or if it's not true (and there's not an ideological disagreement) why do the self proclaimed leftists of something awful dot com tolerate anything but calling out their own shitposters. People usually do get called out when they say something that is actually problematic. To use my previous "fixing class issues will also fix racism" example, if someone said that on these forums they would/do receive backlash from other posters on the left. Regarding Sanders, people on this forum have frequently commented on how they view him as a compromise candidate. You are correct that nothing he is advocating is really anti-capitalist in any way, but he's still considerably to the left of the Democratic mainstream and would represent a significant improvement. You aren't wrong about it being silly when some people who are liberals themselves throw out "liberal" as a insult (usually it seems to just mean "mainstream Democrat"), but I consider it a relatively harmless thing unless it's accompanied by something else that is actually bad/toxic. I can't really speak for anyone else, but I tend to be silent unless I feel someone is wrong in a way that is potentially harmful. A good example is Condiv. Condiv is often very bad at arguing things and has a tendency to jump to conclusions that are convenient to his particular worldview/narrative, but he's never given any indication that his actual goals are harmful or that he would be willing to metaphorically "throw minorities under the bus" or something in order to advance economic leftist causes. I don't believe his type of enthusiasm is harmful, even if I might roll my eyes a bit when he argues something poorly. All political movements with any sort of enthusiasm are going to attract their share of people with irrational views or poor arguments, and part of arguing in good faith is only engaging the ones who are best at articulating their views. Also, it's kind of intrinsically absurd to ask an ideology to police itself to that extent. It would be one thing if you were talking about people saying stuff that is actually problematic/harmful (which usually does get "policed"), but most of the stuff you're referring to is just "people making bad arguments." For every single dumb leftist, there are probably 5 liberals who are advocates for meritocracy or enjoy making casually racist jokes or something. And, perhaps most importantly, leftists are still a minority movement within the Democratic Party. Mainstream liberals are still dominant, and it intrinsically is more reasonable to criticize a dominant political faction than it is to criticize a less influential one (unless the less influential one is actively toxic/harmful, which isn't the case with the radical left as a whole). When leftists attack mainstream liberals, they're "punching up", but liberals who attack the left are attacking a minority political group on a basis that is rarely if ever explicitly ideological (as opposed to the left, which has an actual ideological disagreement with mainstream liberals/Democrats). I feel like a lot of this stems from people heavily overestimating the harm of "people making bad arguments." Unless a bad argument is being used to support something that is actually harmful, I don't really give a poo poo as long as a good argument supporting the same point exists (again, this is part of arguing in good faith). I don't assume that every liberal is Peter Daou, because that would be very dishonest of me.
|
|
#
?
Oct 9, 2017 00:48
|
|
|
A great example of a bad argument that's actually harmful is "propose a serious leftist agenda like Johnson did and return to the popularity he enjoyed". It's predicated on the flawed premise that Johnson supported anything resembling serious leftism, or even anything that's to the left of Obama. It's harmful because historical ignorance makes leftists look dumb, and because if there's value in trying to recapture Johnson's popularity by returning to his politics, it's far from obvious that implies democrats should be moving left to do so. Maybe there are other arguments why democrats should move left, or would benefit politically from moving left, but ones like "copy Johnson" just get in the way. And perhaps more to the point, this is a discussion forum with essentially zero ability to impact US politics or democratic strategy. At that point, whatever pragmatic argument you're entertaining about the utility of letting bad leftist arguments go unmolested seems pretty pointless. Whereas they are very easy for people you don't like to refute--which you find annoying. So if you don't want the evil centrists to poop on bad leftist arguments, you can't just leave those bad arguments lying around like inviting poo poo magnets. If you clean them up yourself, there will be nothing but good leftist arguments to attack, and those are fights you can win.
|
|
#
?
Oct 9, 2017 01:11
|
|
|
JeffersonClay posted:And yet you think Johnson's economic platform, which In terms of economic populism, compared with the Democratic Party orthodoxy over the past several decades, yes - Johnson's economic policies were considerably to the left. You know how I know this? Because centrist presidents who follow your playbook do poo poo like welfare reform.
|
|
#
?
Oct 9, 2017 01:34
|
|
|
Majorian posted:In terms of economic populism, compared with the Democratic Party orthodoxy over the past several decades, yes - Johnson's economic policies were considerably to the left. You know how I know this? Because centrist presidents who follow your playbook do poo poo like welfare reform. Actually I think you'll find that the real leftists are the ones who destroyed welfare and tried to cut Medicare and Social Security
|
|
#
?
Oct 9, 2017 02:02
|
|
|
JeffersonClay posted:Vietnam was a pragmatic calculation that it would look good to be tough on communism which would help when passing great society programs by defusing accusations of socialism!. So when people say democrats should just copy Johnson to get real popular again, Vietnam is actually quite relevant. Johnson was threading a needle by attacking both unrestrained capitalism with minimal government and revolutionary socialism. when Ronald Reagan put out records saying Medicare would lead to a socialist dictatorship Johnson could respond he was bombing the poo poo out of revolutionary socialists and Medicare was just about taking care of grandma. Ah the liberal, faced with being locked out of every level of government, takes a breath, searches deep within his very soul to find the truth buried within, and says "we gotta bomb more scary mud people". I think your conclusion that the New Deal/Great Society Democrats' success was owed to, or at least impossible without, an aggressive murderous foreign policy is not well supported. It's true that they did these things, but "politician did X, therefore X must be why he won" is not automatically true and there are some big problems your theory would need to deal with. Imma list 3: 1) Yes Kennedy beat Nixon in 1960 and among his campaign strategies were insane Trumpy claims like the imaginary missile gap. But it wasn't exactly a smashing success, Kennedy barely won in one of the closest US elections ever with razor-thin margins in the popular vote and in the key states of Illinois and Texas and it could have easily gone the other way. So if that's success to you, well be prepared for more gut-punches like 1968 and 2000 and 2016. 2) In response the GOP nominated the craziest warmonger they could possibly find in 1964 and got absolutely destroyed. 3) By 1968 the Vietnam War was so unpopular that LBJ was trying desperately to get a peace treaty and pull out before the election because without that the Democratic ticket had no hope, and Nixon was promising America a secret plan to end the war while secretly sabotaging the peace talks so he could keep hanging the unpopular war around the Democrats' necks. Also I want to say we've recently tested the theory that cynically supporting insane and evil wars for political gain in order to run an "I'm the real Tough On Terror candidate because Republicans are too dumb to do the wars right, I'll be the bestest at the wars just look at my pro-war record and my war criminal friends who support me", some guy named John Kerry, how did that turn out? And didn't someone try it again real recently like last year, can't place the name though who was that? VitalSigns fucked around with this message at 02:24 on Oct 9, 2017 |
|
#
?
Oct 9, 2017 02:21
|
|
|
JeffersonClay posted:A great example of a bad argument that's actually harmful is "propose a serious leftist agenda like Johnson did and return to the popularity he enjoyed". It's predicated on the flawed premise that Johnson supported anything resembling serious leftism, or even anything that's to the left of Obama. How is that actually harmful? I want you to give specifics. What are you concerned might happen? Do you think leftists will come to power and start a second large foreign war? Come on, no vague insinuations, put it all on the table. Because, even if they're not dominant within the party, left-leaning views have unequivocally become more common since the 2016 primary, so "some leftists making dumb arguments will turn people away from leftism" is clearly not a reasonable concern (no one who isn't engaged with internet leftists is going to notice this stuff to begin with, and your particular brand of anti-left liberal is just as much of a minority among the American electorate as socialists, and more of a minority than Sanders-supporting left-liberals). At the end of the day, people making rational arguments on the internet has virtually no impact on voters. There's only one subgroup of leftists I think have the potential to be harmful, and that's the ones who convert their left-wing economic views into a strident opposition to "identity politics" (defined as "a focus on social issues" here) to the extent that "opposition to 'identity politics'" ends up eclipsing advocacy for helpful policy. You see this occasionally with people who spend 95% of their time talking about how much they hate Clinton or whatever. But those people are ultimately not that influential within left-leaning organizations (and to be honest, in practice they'd still probably be better than mainstream liberals, who aren't exactly doing much to help the social issues they talk about themselves). Regarding Johnson (domestically) vs modern Democrats, I'm kinda confused by what you're saying here. Are you the same person who made the goofy argument about how government spending being high means that current Democrats are more left-leaning than past Democrats? I feel like you may have been, in which case the premise of your argument is so absurd that I'm not really sure how to respond to it. While not exactly anything I'd call "leftist," what Johnson did domestically, relative to the status quo when he was elected, was far more ambitious than anything modern Democrats are willing to entertain. This should be undeniable. As I specifically said in my earlier post, I completely understand someone saying "but Vietnam" in response to someone broadly saying "we should go back to 'Johnson's politics'" (as that's an important enough thing they should be obligated to clarify), but generally speaking when people say they they're likely referring to ambitious social welfare policy, not war. I even responded to Crowsbeak's post saying "defending Johnson on Vietnam is dumb." Honestly, I'm trying hard to be reasonable here. I explained in an earlier post what I believe to be legitimate problems with the left (or more specifically, the way the left sometimes engages people who aren't on the left). But what you're describing seems to be more the result of your own personal feelings rather than a reasonable evaluation of how leftist behavior might hurt leftist goals. The American public at large is not irritated by some leftists making dumb arguments online. Liberals who are aggravated with the left are a minority. And, honestly, so are "actual" leftists; most Sanders supporters are not actual socialists. But leftists usually realize this, and the ones who don't aren't exactly causing harm (a leftist who believes Americans are clamoring for socialism might be a little thick, but he/she's not causing any harm).
|
|
#
?
Oct 9, 2017 04:07
|
|
|
yronic heroism posted:1. Amusingly, Johnson and Roosevelt weren't leftists. These were liberals who as history would have it had the advantage of large congressional majorities. "left-liberal on the verge of seeing the value in one-party socialist states" is my favorite genre of post
|
|
#
?
Oct 9, 2017 05:46
|
|
|
R. Guyovich posted:"left-liberal on the verge of seeing the value in one-party socialist states" is my favorite genre of post I think you might be giving yronic too much credit here...
|
|
#
?
Oct 9, 2017 16:48
|
|
|
It is definitely possible to say FDR/Johnson weren't leftists or there were bad parts of the New Deal but at the same time they were way to the left (in purely relative sense) to current Democrats, who seem arguably seem to the right of some of the Republicans of that era. Also, as far as the New Deal goes you need to be specific about which parts were racist (that domestic/agricultural workers couldn't get social security, or the FHA ignored redlining) rather than say African Americans didn't benefit from any parts of it. Otherwise, a lot of American history doesn't make sense...African Americans started to switch sides during that era from the "Party of Lincoln" to the Democrats during that era despite the Dixiecrats (the big shift happened in 1936). quote:It is also important to recognize that this hope was not merely based on empty promises of change, but on the actual words and deeds spoken by Franklin and Eleanor Roosevelt and taken by the federal government at a time when racism was deeply seared into the American psyche. With respect to the critical issue of employment, for example, we know that by 1935, the Works Progress Administration (WPA) was employing approximately 350,000 African Americans annually, about 15% of its total workforce. In the Civilian Conservation Corps, the percentage of blacks who took part climbed from roughly 3% at its outset in 1933 to over 11% by the close of 1938 with a total of more than 350,000 having been enrolled in the CCC by the time the program was shut down in 1942. The National Youth Administration, under the direction of Aubrey Williams, hired more black administrators than any other New deal agency; employed African American supervisors to oversee the work the agency was doing on behalf of black youth for each state in the south; and assisted more than 300,000 Africa American youth during the Depression. In 1934, the Public Works Administration (PWA) inserted a clause in all government construction contracts that established a quota for the hiring of black laborers based on the 1930 labor census and as a consequence a significant number of blacks received skilled employment on PWA projects. Ardennes fucked around with this message at 16:59 on Oct 9, 2017 |
|
#
?
Oct 9, 2017 16:51
|
|
|
Obama himself said that if he were to have run in the 80s he'd be seen as a moderate Republican, so they absolutely know how rightward of LBJ and Roosevelt their stances actually are.
|
|
#
?
Oct 9, 2017 16:56
|
|
|
https://www.google.com/amp/s/fivethirtyeight.com/features/how-liberal-is-president-obama/amp/
|
|
#
?
Oct 9, 2017 17:13
|
|
|
yronic heroism posted:https://www.google.com/amp/s/fivethirtyeight.com/features/how-liberal-is-president-obama/amp/ Hmmmm, a thinkpiece about a study from April 2011, which Silver criticizes on the following grounds: quote:I’ve given a lot of credence to the DW-Nominate scores in this article, assuming that they do a reasonable job of capturing shifts in the ideological positions of Congress over time. In truth, after having read “Ideology and Congress,” I’m not entirely persuaded that they can capture all of these dynamics. The system is essentially blind to the content of legislation, so if there are changes in the types of bills that Congress votes upon, there could be long-run ideological changes that are not well accounted for by the system. Measuring ideological change is one of the trickiest questions that political scientists face, and a complete treatment would require a thesis- or book-length approach. I'm not sure why you thought this helped your argument.
|
|
#
?
Oct 9, 2017 17:23
|
|
|
yronic heroism posted:https://www.google.com/amp/s/fivethirtyeight.com/features/how-liberal-is-president-obama/amp/ I could have missed something, but does it actually explain whether/how votes were weighted? Like, if someone votes "yea" on 10 technically left-wing things, are they considered "more liberal" than someone who votes "yea" on 4 left-wing things, even if one of those things is monumentally more ambitious than any of the former 10 things? edit: Yeah, the article itself says the following: quote:The system is essentially blind to the content of legislation, so if there are changes in the types of bills that Congress votes upon, there could be long-run ideological changes that are not well accounted for by the system. That's a pretty massive problem! edit2: Hahaha I see someone else noticed the same thing I did.
|
|
#
?
Oct 9, 2017 17:25
|
|
|
Majorian posted:In terms of economic populism, compared with the Democratic Party orthodoxy over the past several decades, yes - Johnson's economic policies were considerably to the left. You know how I know this? Because centrist presidents who follow your playbook do poo poo like welfare reform. Johnson cut social services to balance the budget in 1968 and FDR cut services to balance the budget in 1937. Balanced budgets, tax cuts and ideological defense of free enterprise were populist in 1964. Maybe it's not now, but in that case we shouldn't be looking to his policies for guidance on how to win. There has never been a time where the Democratic Party wasn't concerned with balancing budgets or defending free enterprise. That doesn't mean they shouldn't change, but it means these assertions you're making about some golden age of democratic leftism are ahistorical. VitalSigns posted:Ah the liberal, faced with being locked out of every level of government, takes a breath, searches deep within his very soul to find the truth buried within, and says "we gotta bomb more scary mud people". That's not my theory, that's the theory I'm attacking. People asserting that democrats need to embrace the economic populism--whatever that means today--of the Johnson administration are making that argument. I'm suggesting that it's impossible to disaggregate the effects of that "populism" from the other policies Johnson advocated, like a muscular policy of communist containment. Containing communism was both extremely popular and insulated Johnson from accusations of being a secret socialist. Ytlaya posted:Honestly, I'm trying hard to be reasonable here. I explained in an earlier post what I believe to be legitimate problems with the left (or more specifically, the way the left sometimes engages people who aren't on the left). But what you're describing seems to be more the result of your own personal feelings rather than a reasonable evaluation of how leftist behavior might hurt leftist goals. The American public at large is not irritated by some leftists making dumb arguments online. Liberals who are aggravated with the left are a minority. And, honestly, so are "actual" leftists; most Sanders supporters are not actual socialists. But leftists usually realize this, and the ones who don't aren't exactly causing harm (a leftist who believes Americans are clamoring for socialism might be a little thick, but he/she's not causing any harm). We, the posters on the somethingawful dot com forums, do not shift the Overton window or have any impact on US politics at all. I'm not suggesting the US public is irritated by bad leftist arguments, I'm suggesting you personally are irritated by those arguments when I engage with them instead of better ones. I'm suggesting if you eliminate the bad leftist arguments, either I'll be forced to engage with the good ones, or stop engaging altogether, which are both outcomes you'd prefer.
|
|
#
?
Oct 9, 2017 17:30
|
|
|
JeffersonClay posted:Johnson cut social services to balance the budget in 1968 and FDR cut services to balance the budget in 1937. Balanced budgets, tax cuts and ideological defense of free enterprise were populist in 1964. And yet the net effects of their domestic policies were a greatly expanded social safety net. The opposite is true of Bill Clinton's, and Obama's did too little to offset the conservatism of Clinton's tenure. quote:That's not my theory, that's the theory I'm attacking. People asserting that democrats need to embrace the economic populism--whatever that means today--of the Johnson administration are making that argument. No one is making this argument. Citing FDR and Johnson serves to illustrate that left-populism has been popular in the past, and will likely be popular again, not that we need to implement carbon copies of their respective domestic policies.
|
|
#
?
Oct 9, 2017 17:50
|
|
|
How remarkable, this study which looks at nothing but congressional roll call votes (and has literally not mechanism for analyzing the actual legislation being voted on) has proven that the Presidential Administration that created welfare and enacted financial regulations like Glass–Steagall is for all intents and purposes ideologically the same as the administration which "ended welfare as we know it" and abolished Glass–Steagall. Cargo Cult empiricism for the win!
|
|
#
?
Oct 9, 2017 17:58
|
|
|
Ytlaya posted:I could have missed something, but does it actually explain whether/how votes were weighted? Like, if someone votes "yea" on 10 technically left-wing things, are they considered "more liberal" than someone who votes "yea" on 4 left-wing things, even if one of those things is monumentally more ambitious than any of the former 10 things? Anecdotally calculating LBJ's left/right ideology without factoring in Vietnam, which is a thing actually done ITT, is also a massive problem. Frankly, Obama is a better president precisely because he hasn't had a Vietnam (and no Afghanistan comes nowhere close).
|
|
#
?
Oct 9, 2017 18:08
|
|
|
yronic heroism posted:Anecdotally calculating LBJ's left/right ideology without factoring in Vietnam, which is a thing actually done ITT, is also a massive problem. Not really, since all of the praise of LBJ here has been explicitly about his domestic policies. Also everyone here is in agreement that Vietnam was a huge, terrible, atrocity-filled disaster. So it's weird that you'd call it "a massive problem." A much greater problem is your refusal to acknowledge that there are valuable aspects of the Great Society that we can take and adapt to a 21st century setting.
|
|
#
?
Oct 9, 2017 18:10
|
|
|
Majorian posted:Not really, since all of the praise of LBJ here has been explicitly about his domestic policies. Context matters. And war policy is domestic policy. It affects who gets drafted, where tax revenues go, what is being protested, future VA obligations, and on and on.
|
|
#
?
Oct 9, 2017 18:12
|
|
|
yronic heroism posted:Context matters. And war policy is domestic policy. Except again, it's pretty clear that people praising LBJ were talking about specifically his left-populist platform, as encompassed by the Great Society. Pretending like such a platform must necessarily be paired with, or lead to, a war like Vietnam, is idiotic. You can keep trying to distract from the topic at hand, but I'm going to keep calling you on it.
|
|
#
?
Oct 9, 2017 18:15
|
|
|
Majorian posted:A much greater problem is your refusal to acknowledge that there are valuable aspects of the Great Society that we can take and adapt to a 21st century setting. Fortunately I never did that and support MFA. Sorry I couldn't be a better caricature for you.
|
|
#
?
Oct 9, 2017 18:15
|
|
|
yronic heroism posted:Fortunately I never did that Nope, just hinted at it as strongly as you possibly could. 
|
|
#
?
Oct 9, 2017 18:17
|
|
|
"lol I'm actually totally supportive of the Great Society and MFA, I'm only arguing with you because I'm a pedantic idiot, check mate" 
|
|
#
?
Oct 9, 2017 18:19
|
|
|
Fighting about which president was more liberal or leftist is dumb as gently caress since politics changes too much to be certain what each would do in each others' shoes. A juicer fight is to be had over what policies should be kept/expanded/undone. Anyone here think Glass-Stegle was bad? Anyone oppose the ERA? Anyone oppose a jobs guarantee? Is the opposition for theoretical or practical reasons?
|
|
#
?
Oct 9, 2017 18:21
|
|
|
Trabisnikof posted:Fighting about which president was more liberal or leftist is dumb as gently caress since politics changes too much to be certain what each would do in each others' shoes. That's basically the argument the left-populists here are trying to have, though. People like JC and yronic are the ones who keep trying to distract from it, and turn it into, "Well ACTUALLY, LBJ was less liberal than _____ "
|
|
#
?
Oct 9, 2017 18:30
|
|
|
Majorian posted:Nope, just hinted at it as strongly as you possibly could. Yes, telling people not to post stupid poo poo they don't understand about 20th century U.S. history because I happen to have studied that history makes me D&D's greatest monster, got it.
|
|
#
?
Oct 9, 2017 18:30
|
|
|
Majorian posted:And yet the net effects of their domestic policies were a greatly expanded social safety net. The opposite is true of Bill Clinton's, and Obama's did too little to offset the conservatism of Clinton's tenure. quote:No one is making this argument. Citing FDR and Johnson serves to illustrate that left-populism has been popular in the past, and will likely be popular again, not that we need to implement carbon copies of their respective domestic policies. Majorian posted:Except again, it's pretty clear that people praising LBJ were talking about specifically his left-populist platform, as encompassed by the Great Society. Pretending like such a platform must necessarily be paired with, or lead to, a war like Vietnam, is idiotic. You can keep trying to distract from the topic at hand, but I'm going to keep calling you on it. Johnson's aggressive anti communism insulated him from Reagan's "socialist dictatorship!" criticism when passing Medicare. Does he pass Medicare without simultaneously spending aggressively to combat communism? Probably not.
|
|
#
?
Oct 9, 2017 18:33
|
|
|
yronic heroism posted:Yes, telling people not to post stupid poo poo they don't understand about 20th century U.S. history because I happen to have studied that history makes me D&D's greatest monster, got it. Yes, that's an accurate take. Poor baby, so unfairly maligned! JeffersonClay posted:Obama significantly expanded the social safety net. The social safety net is more robust today than at any other time in history. Obama marginally expanded the social safety net - not enough to offset the depredations of the Clinton Administration. The social safety net is not "more robust than at any other time in history," that's just flat-out nonsense. quote:How are you disaggregating "left populism" from balanced budgets, tax cuts, ideological defenses of free enterprise and muscular foreign policy to maintain the dominance of free market capitalism? Because none of these things necessarily come with an economically populist platform? I'm not sure why you need this answered for you.  quote:Johnson's aggressive anti communism insulated him from Reagan's "socialist dictatorship!" criticism when passing Medicare. Does he pass Medicare without simultaneously spending aggressively to combat communism? Probably not. [citation needed]
|
|
#
?
Oct 9, 2017 18:38
|
|
|
JeffersonClay posted:We, the posters on the somethingawful dot com forums, do not shift the Overton window or have any impact on US politics at all. I'm not suggesting the US public is irritated by bad leftist arguments, I'm suggesting you personally are irritated by those arguments when I engage with them instead of better ones. I'm suggesting if you eliminate the bad leftist arguments, either I'll be forced to engage with the good ones, or stop engaging altogether, which are both outcomes you'd prefer. The difference is that when myself or other leftist folks argue with mainstream liberals there's an actual explicit ideological disagreement there. Your "side" is the one that keeps bringing up how moving to the left might influence electoral results, so that's your choice of framing, not mine. I also have no more responsibility to defend bad leftist arguments (I'm making a distinction between "bad" and "potentially harmful" here, as mentioned earlier; obviously you should call out someone being bigoted or something) than you have a responsibility to call out Peter Daou or something (and usually the "bad" arguments in question aren't actually explicitly wrong about anything; they just don't prove their point).
|
|
#
?
Oct 9, 2017 18:43
|
|
|
|
| # ? May 24, 2024 20:21 |
|
|
Majorian posted:Obama marginally expanded the social safety net - not enough to offset the depredations of the Clinton Administration. The social safety net is not "more robust than at any other time in history," that's just flat-out nonsense. quote:Because none of these things necessarily come with an economically populist platform? I'm not sure why you need this answered for you. quote:[citation needed] What do you want a citation for? Johnson's anti communism? Reagan's attacks on Medicare as leading to a socialist dictatorship? The tight margins for medicare's passage? The massive democratic losses in the 1966 midterms?
|
|
#
?
Oct 9, 2017 18:57
|
|