General Politics Thread

As you should be, The Horeshoe "theory" has no empirical backing or academic rigour. It's just centrist wanking about how the far-left and far-right are identical if you ignore the differences and the existence of the libertarian far-left.

What's the best possible Right Wing?

A non-existent one.

Center-right, skeptical of change but not fanatically opposed to it.

Edited by Fourthspartan56 on Aug 21st 2019 at 9:13:25 AM

I'd dispute the idea that Stalinists have redeeming features any more than Nazis do. Let alone numerous authoritarian left-wing regimes.

I doubt things would be very different at all in terms of the polticial landscape. Most right-wing or far-right types do not consider fascism or nazism to be cautionary tales as to what happens if you take their ideology too far. They largely do not consider them to be right-wing ideologies at all; commonly dismissing them as having been left-wing offshoots from socialist movements. Bolsonaro has explicitly called Nazism a left-wing ideology and Salvini has flatly denied any inspiration from Italian fascism.

Edited by DrDougsh on Aug 21st 2019 at 9:15:29 AM

The fact that they feel the need to deny they were right-wing at all tells me a lot. They know it's shit and have convinced themselves that they aren't the same.

You see a similar parallel with more Libertarian Leftist types denouncing Authoritarian Leftism as not real leftism (see terms like Tankie and Red Fascist that get bandied around at times). But even then that is not the same as the disavowals you see on the Right, since when it happens on the Left it is almost always due to genuine ideological conflicts.

Edited by Mio on Aug 21st 2019 at 12:33:41 PM

To be honest, I have felt that a lot of Leftist "late denouncers" just do that to ensure they can still feel good and continue trying to share their brand of ideology without really having to deal with the fallout.

Like, they really aren't regretful, they just are frustrated that it turned out bad and it can't be used as a example of why their system can work.

Edited by KazuyaProta on Aug 21st 2019 at 12:09:23 PM

Should they be regretful?

I don't see why an anarchist in the modern-day should feel regret about the failures of people who not just predated them by decades but also purged their ideological kin.

Anarchists—frankly—feels even more cowardly, being Not So Different from "Centrists" that see themselves above everyone. I've see a lot of whatboutism mixed with Not Real Leftism.

A reminder that Kazuya is from Peru, a country that has seen Leftists in one of their worst forms.

Sure but you can break down ideologically why those leftists denounce authoritarian “socialist” regimes and systems as being significantly different to themselves and even “not really socialist”. Lenin himself didn’t consider the USSR in the state he left it (i.e. the state it would continue to be until its breakup) as being socialist. There are tomes of socialist theory and philosophy that predate the 20th Century regimes and contradict them on what it means to be socialist. This isn’t (necessarily) people moving the goalposts after the fact, it’s also people pointing out that the authoritarian leftists got it wrong in the first place.

Yeah, yet Libertarian Socialists and Anarchists aren't actually the same as groups like the Shining Path or the CPSU.

Kazuya, of course you're going to see them denying having anything to do with Authoritarian Socialists, they aren't actually ideologically the same thing. I've said this before and will continue to do so, Mao isn't Chomsky isn't Corbyn isn't MLK isn't Lenin isn't Lennon. Why would, for instance, an anarchist think the failings of the Soviet Union have any bearing on their own ideology? They aren't the same.

Yet we still end up with people who have no business defending Stalin and his ilk doing exactly that.

I just recently had to deal with an anarchist engaging in Stalin apologia and my internal reaction could be boiled down to "Stalin murdered a lot of your kind during the Spanish Civil War - why are you defending the guy?"

There is this very nasty mindset in parts of the leftist spectrum that anyone even remotely related to "their" side has to be defended at all cost.

You see it with China and the USSR, you see it with Maduro in Venezuela and you sometimes even see it with North Korea.

Add ignoring the purges in Anarchist Catalonia or saying "The conservatives would have crushed it and they did!, so it was too complex, be understanding".

And honestly, if your attitude has to be "They killed my allies"...that's a very bad one.

Edited by KazuyaProta on Aug 21st 2019 at 1:50:47 PM

Ya know, as an avowed Lefty, I'm kinda sick of this shit.

Whenever we have internal ideological struggles and fight amongst ourselves, the liberals and centrist sitting on the sidelines point to hardcore Conservatives and Fascists and go 'why are you fighting each other, they're the enemy... You not getting along is why we haven't beaten those guys yet!'

Yet those same liberals and centrists constantly pop up to tell us how the entire left (except, of course, them. If they're the type who consider themselves the 'real' left) is terrible because some elements of it are terrible.

It’s almost like the entire left-right spectrum is a massive oversimplification that falls apart once one gets into any detail. Ideological groups certainly have allies and work with tiger ideological groups, but it’s not some neat line from one side to the other.

As for Anarchists, how common are they? I think we’ve had maybe one or two full on national anarchy Anarchists in OTC over the last 8 years, plus a handful of us with kinda anarchical leanings that manifest in a desire for a less top-down societal structure.

You get the occasional movement of Lennists or Maoists, but actual Anarchists don’t seem to ever manifest as a movement.

Outright anarchists are pretty rare, but a few posters here are influenced at times by anarchism like you said. And I know we have anarchists on the site, just none that post in On-Topic all that much.

I still miss deathpigeon - he was an anarchist and a pretty cool guy, even/especially when he was driving Fighteer up the wall.

That may not be as true as you'd think.

Maybe it's just because I'm in deep with the left outside OTC/TVTropes, but Anarchists are actually both surprisingly common and surprisingly organised.

I mean... If I'm completely honest about my ideological convictions, I am an Anarchist... I just compromise my ideology for the sake of not punching sideways a lot...

Also, please don't use 'national anarchy' as a term to refer to any form of actual anarchy. It has a meaning, it's on par with National Socialism and National Bolshevism.

What term would be appropriate for anarchists who want to see the an anarchical system in place not just at local levels (so anarchical schools, anarchical businesses, anarchical villages) but at a nation-state level?

X2 They made for some interesting conversations but in the end one can only calls for violence so many times before getting banned.

I might also count depending where one draws the line, I spent six years in an anarchical boarding school.

Edited by Silasw on Aug 21st 2019 at 9:39:08 AM

And scratch that, apparently we do have at least one anarchist posting here. Huh.

Did deathpigeon use he/him pronouns? I barely saw them before they stopped posting, so I cannot remember nor seem to find any indication as to which pronouns were used.

Edited by AzurePaladin on Aug 21st 2019 at 5:36:37 AM

That depends...

Like... Definitionally anarchists want Anarchy to take place at the international level, because the belief that the nation-state is not a valid political entity, but just another unjust hierarchization, is part of the framework of anarchy.

So properly my answer should be that any anarchist who stops at the national level is not an anarchist at all.

The word for an anarchist who isn't quite sure whether or not to smash the nation-state is, usually, 'socialist'.

(Keep in mind that this is meant to be a bit tongue-in-cheek).

Edited by Robrecht on Aug 21st 2019 at 12:09:22 PM

Well, it depends on how one defines nation, a state, or a nation-state. By definition, an anarchist prefers states not existing at all.

However, if one doesn't define nation as being synonymous with government, then you theoretically can have nationalist anarchism. A good example of something similar would be your stereotypical Right-Wing Militia Fanatic who hates the government while spouting something sounding like patriotic fervor.

There's also an ideology called National Anarchism, but it's...uh...well, it's best described as combining elements of anarchism with fascism. Now, you're probably thinking to yourself right now "that sounds like a fucking stupid ideology", but the thing you don't understand is that you're right-it is a fucking stupid ideology. It's universally reviled by followers of other forms of anarchism, for obvious reasons, which does call into question whether or not it's truly anarchist. I do think anarchists are rather prone to playing the No True Scotsman card, though in this case it's a bit more justifiable.

Question . What's your ideal Right Wing "model", see, Insitutions and policies to implement