General Politics Thread

In my case, I live in the capital of my country (Hungary) and last autumn, at the municipials, I voted in Budapest for the first time. My district's polling station was set up in the entry hall of a creche/nursery.

In parliamentary governments, should the ruling party need a new Prime Minister if something bad happens to the current one, are there requirements the ruling party need for the replacement Prime Minister?

That depends entirely on the country in question, the government they have formed and the internal processes of the prime minister’s party.

So in the U.K. the process would be different depending on if it was Labour or the Conservatives in government, that’s assuming they were in a majority government, if they had formed a coalition government with a minor party then things would be different again.

Basically, I learned that Charlie likes the horseshoe theory as an anti-communist, which is a common thread I've seen.

From the US politics thread

I think that's a generalization that runs into some problems but I think that people run into a problem by essentially making choices dualistic. If you are against Stalin and think he's the world's second worst dictator and a mass murderer, that doesn't make you support Hitler or vice versa. You can be opposed to dictators and authoritarianism in general and don't have to pick sides. It's a trick of what I think to be bad faith politics. The idea that you can only be one or the other.

Like during the Cold War there was capitalist or communist. George Orwell's Animal Farm has the Left become every bit as vile as the Right but the issue is that they both have fallen prey to treating people like, beat, animals.

Edited by CharlesPhipps on Apr 20th 2020 at 6:03:49 AM

For me it's a simple matter of being opposed to authoritarianism and a belief that authoritarianism isn't inherently winged, therefore "well it's not true communism" or "authoritarianism is inherently un-left so we can wash our hands of it" are not valid arguments.

For me, my issue with Communism is very simple. It failed. Multiple times. It doesn't work.

At some point you just gotta admit that something just isn't worth it, especially since failure tends to result in a massive body count, environmental destruction, etc...

From my experience, socialists are much more reasonable and level-headed. I feel most at home with those who reject the Soviet model, then scorn communism for being too dictatorial, and point to democratic socialism and social democracy.

I guess generally I could be called a fairly anti-communist left-winger. For now, I tend to follow this, minus the dangguo because frankly that's terrible.

Edited by TheWildWestPyro on Apr 20th 2020 at 6:17:27 AM

In regards to the horseshoe theory vs opposing authoritarianism, they're very different things.

It is perfectly intellectually consistent to reject authoritarianism regardless if it is inspired by left or right wing ideals.

But the horseshoe "theory" is intellectually vacuous nonsense. It eliminates all nuance in the name of centrist propagandizing. Compare Neo-Nazis to anarchists, both are radical ideologies (respectively right and left) and yet asserting that they're the same shows shocking ignorance. Heck, even compare two authoritarian states, Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union, and you'd see very different structures and policies (for example, the Nazis engaged in the mass privatization of state assets while the Soviets nationalized everything under Stalin). The Horseshoe theory runs on the idea that both the far-left and far-right are bad and thus must be the same, which suffice to say is terrible logic.

Edited by Fourthspartan56 on Apr 20th 2020 at 6:32:07 AM

As an ex-anarchist, I can confirm that I am suspicious of Horseshoe theory for the same reason.

Yes, Stalin and Hitler were bad people but the ideologies beneath them were very different. I also consider Torquemada to similarly different despite political and thought repression. The thing they have in common is a complete lack of respect for the value of life in the pursuit of their goals that isn't really something that actually makes them have THAT much in common.

My view on communism is the fact that its ultimate failure point is the fact that it depends on conformity and a shared assumption of universality among the human experience. To get everyone on the same page, the government needs absolute power and absolute agreement from its citizens to be equalized. Except if the citizens don't WANT to be then they have to be stamped out.

It's an ideology that has no actual room for failure points. Or, to put it in simpler terms, "Where do you go in communist society if you don't want to be part of it?" The answer in traditionalist communism is a confused, "Why would you want to leave?" Ironically, other oppressive ideologies at least make a space for failure points without the whole thing falling apart. The utopianism of a strict interpretation...doesn't.

Weirdly, Star Trek is the only one that has an answer if you ascribe to the Federation as communist. Outer space. Otherwise, you just have people who are in a society that is materially controlled and arguably mentally as Marx's vision was beyond economics but to all levels of the human experience.

Edited by CharlesPhipps on Apr 20th 2020 at 6:24:08 AM

That's generally how I lean as well. In my experiences talking to democratic socialists elsewhere, while there are definitely some intractables out there, they tend to be proportionately less ideologically rigid and more willing to call out ideological allies' crimes compared to their communist brethren. They're also less likely to be dogmatic and more willing to accept that sometimes pragmatic methods like compromise and negotiation are more useful than gambling on utopian ideals.

Edited by AlleyOop on Apr 20th 2020 at 9:25:18 AM

Also, initially I felt distant from Dr. Sun's principle of nationalism, until I realized he wanted a truly unified Chinese national identity, not just the Han, for them and the 55 other minorities.

Generally, I tend to be approving of left-wing nationalism, as it's a pretty powerful force and usually rejects ethno-nationalism.

My mother has finally rejected the CCP and turned to his ideals - it's not like us Chinese have much of an alternative. He really was the only long-lasting democrat China ever had, even if he arguably forcibly made himself a warlord later on, and got all disillusioned after Yuan's coup.

Edited by TheWildWestPyro on Apr 20th 2020 at 6:27:32 AM

I view nationalism in the same lens as religion.

In the Tony Blair vs. Christopher Hitchen's debate (which you would have to be an idiot or bored as hell to watch), the first question was "is religion good?"

My reaction and thus realizing I should change the channel was, "Wait, which religion?"

Very different nation-states, systems, and what they stand for exist. The devil is in the details.

It's kind of that old canard, My Country, Right or Wrong. People seem to have deliberately forgotten its part of a quote, "My country right or wrong, if right be kept right, if wrong then set right."

Sort of like, "A few bad apples" is used despite the entire phrase being, "A few bad apples spoil the barrel.

Wow, that was a weird digression.

With the horseshoe theory, I'd argue it's technically correct, but I'd argue the primary mechanism is mostly just tautology. Extremism itself implies certain traits, so by definition all extremist ideologies have something in common.

So what do you all think about syncretism and politics?

Edited by TheWildWestPyro on Apr 20th 2020 at 6:30:43 AM

Syncretic politics tends to manifest as what is typically referred to as centrism.

Examples include the USA's Third Way and the UK's New Labour.

The results, fittingly, have been mixed.

Edited by M84 on Apr 20th 2020 at 9:37:50 PM

If you start blending together policies you're going to get the golden mean fallacy to the face and bunt the overton window away from whatever you nominally consider to be a good idea.

I find it weird to see socialists talked about like some strange creature that doesn't exist on this site.

Weren't the original Soviet revolutionaries killed by Stalin and his flunkies after they took down the tsars?

I just know about Trostky getting an ice pick in his skull.

Being a Trotskyist was effectively a death sentence; Trotsky was assassinated in Mexico that was then under the beloved social democrat Lazaro Cardenas, possibly in behalf of the NKVD and the head of the Mexican Communists, Vincente Toledano, who was loyal to the party line. Cardenas wasn't the one who authorized Trotsky's exile, but rather a group of Communist artists including celebrated muralist Diego Rivera.

Chen Duxiu, founder of the CCP, became a Trotskyist, was expelled and was obliterated from the mainland history books forever, cast as a villain opposing Mao.

And yes, Stalin did extend purges to having rivals persecuted or murdered worldwide, ordering the Comintern to do so. Spain saw among the worst of it as the PCE gutted the anarchists and Trotskyists within the Republican movement.

Edited by TheWildWestPyro on Apr 20th 2020 at 7:04:43 AM

In Soviet studies, it was difficult to talk about how many people Stalin killed or the groups he killed. Indeed, many times he purged his own inner circles of flunkies in order to keep them from working against him. Yes, he purged many of the original revolutionaries but he also rewrote history so he played a central role in the Revolution (which he didn't).

Trotsky's supporters and the Bolshevik's suffered heavily but it's hard to say Stalin's own (as well as random people) didn't.

Edited by CharlesPhipps on Apr 20th 2020 at 7:14:48 AM

So how were their policies and ideals different from Stalin's?

The short answer? They had the policy of Trotsky while Stalin had the policy of Stalin.

The long answer was that Stalin had the idea of using mass forced labor, country-wide starvation tactics, and Soviet-ification of occupied territories with mass executions as well as total control of the media/education system. Stalin believed in rewriting history while also pursuing a policy of industrialization along BIGGER, HUGER, MORE IMPRESSIVE lines even when bigger less efficient. Millions were murdered and Stalin let Beria run wild with rape, pillage, and mass arrests to terrorize any perceived descent into submission. His support of science occasionally verged into nonsense and helped enlarge the food crises.

Oh and Stalin oddly was less repressive to Christianity due to the fact that he understood that it was a good tool against Nazis.

My view of Trotsky was he was ALSO an incredibly awful person. Among his more charming qualities being that he helped set up the security apparatus to murder capitalists and merchants as well as religious dissidents. He also forced many in the military to cooperate with threats to their families and holding hostages. It's just Stalin was in his own league so some people give the former a Historical Hero Upgrade.

Edited by CharlesPhipps on Apr 20th 2020 at 7:23:03 AM

It's widely commented that there isn't much difference between Trotskyism and Stalinism outside of foreign policy.

So both would have been bad for the Russian people but one was bad for everyone else.