Why do you keep saying the labels don't matter than insist on using labels to say these parties and candidates are something else? The redefinitions are coming from you. So far you've offered three variations: (1) Left-vs-right as based on "outcomes of lives", (2) as opposed to 35 years ago, and (3) as opposed to some international comparison.
The first makes no sense and still lacks any explanation. The other two are arbitrary.
These parties are left-vs-right as of 2020 American politics. The definitions are dependent on the context of the time and place because politics change over time. They are also relative to each other; Left means left of the right, and vice versa. And center means in the middle of both. It's the current era that determines where the spectrum is actually anchored.
Why are you so insistent on using some other scale to label everything differently? What purpose does that serve? Is that not meaningless semantics?
Yes, agreed, if you are willing to discuss in good faith we could resume the discussion, but that seems very unlikely given your comments so far.
If all you do is try rhetorical deflection by repeatedly saying previous comments weren’t clear when by any reasonable standard they were clear, you’re just arguing with yourself in an echo chamber and it’s not productive for people to engage with you.
You aren’t engaging with the clearly explained positions of my comments, you’re merely splicing quotes out of context and acting like you are entitled to question definitions of basic, widely agreed terms. Claiming subjectivity and confusion over definitions and then disingenuously acting like the other party is the one that’s changing definitions is not a valid argument. You’re just writing a lot of inflammatory verbiage to drum up confusion and selectively quote earlier comments to act like the position they represent isn’t consistent or clear even though it is.
Looking in your comment history it seems you have a very strong habit of doing this in many threads, often with a clear agenda favoring US right-leaning politics, so the most reasonable conclusion I can see is that you are trying to inflame confusion and derail otherwise valid points by converting them into endless semantic arguments about definitions just to support your existing biases.
You're saying X is actually Y based on a different context. I keep asking you why you skip context and only use Y and you have no answer other than to say it's different from X and is the "real" answer. This is, quite literally, redefining the terms to support your bias. Why are you so insistent on saying there is "no real left" in the USA when there clearly is? Who cares about these outdated global definitions? You're disagreeing with the entire country to do what exactly?
I take great care in my discussions to be as objective and concise as possible, while focusing on the actual arguments and asking questions to get to the root of the matter. You clearly haven't read my thousands of comments on this site if you think otherwise. However I find that you constantly use the same "good faith" excuse every time. Why is that? If your position can't be clearly communicated and so easily breaks down under light questioning, then it's a failure of your position.
But since this isn't going anywhere, I'll end it here.
> So far you've offered three variations: (1) Left-vs-right as based on "outcomes of lives", (2) as opposed to 35 years ago, and (3) as opposed to some international comparison.
The very obvious point is that by using any consistent definition of left and right, either time-locked, global, or otherwise, the US doesn't have anything resembling a far-left party.
> Why are you so insistent on using some other scale to label everything differently? What purpose does that serve? Is that not meaningless semantics?
It forces people to recognize the extreme rightward shift in politics, and therefore the idea that appealing "to the center" is in fact an appeal to regress further to the right. This is something those on the right vehemently want to avoid admitting, since it prevents them from painting themselves as victims.
Those definitions aren't consistent, they're just different because the context is different. It's like general relativity, left vs right only exist in relation to something else.
> "forces people to recognize the extreme rightward shift in politics"
This is just strange. Politics change all the time in every dimension, just like people's values and opinions. Clinton was a Democrat who wanted strong borders and now the modern left wants open borders. Isn't that a shift to the left?
Everyone is aware that politics change over time. Nobody needs to recognize anything other than the policies and parties they identify with and want to have. If you can't discuss the policies and must use a party definition from decades ago then I don't see how this is anything but "painting [yourselves] as victims".
> Those definitions aren't consistent, they're just different because the context is different. It's like general relativity, left vs right only exist in relation to something else.
Yes, and the US Republican party is extremely far right, so labelling other parties solely in relation to US politics is not useful for discussing like actual political ideology.
It is, however, useful if you want to paint mainstream European political ideologies as socialism.
> Everyone is aware that politics change over time.
Then recognize that and be willing to have a discussion about politics in relation to time. If you refuse to engage with someone who points out that a political party or idea is not actual far left in the grand scheme of things, you are refusing to recognize the larger context.
In general, its difficult to have conversations without consistent definitions, and if the Republican party can change the definition of "left" by moving further to the right, this makes discussion of left politics hard, so people interested in discussing leftist politics have to reject that definition to have productive conversations.
If you don't want to have productive conversations with those people, that's your choice. But say that, don't claim they're being disingenuous.
> Clinton was a Democrat who wanted strong borders and now the modern left wants open borders. Isn't that a shift to the left?
Depending on exactly what you mean by "open borders", Sanders, who is conventionally considered left-of-the-median Democrat, wants less open borders than the democratic party as a whole. He's for freedom of movement of people, but for more tariffs and economic protectionism than the democratic party.
Trump and Sanders are actually sort of unique in this regard. Conventional Democrats and Republicans both favor free trade, although perhaps for different reasons. Trump, being anti-globalization does not, and Sander, being pro-labor, does not.
Again, in relation to what? It's the right, as according to current American politics because that's the context.
> "points out that a political party or idea is not actual far left in the grand scheme of things"
There is no "grand scheme" of things, you just picked a different context. Things would be different still if we went back to the Civil War or Ancient Greece.
> "productive conversations with those people, that's your choice. But say that, don't claim they're being disingenuous."
I'm not, I'm asking simple questions that go unanswered. The only reasoning I received was that you want people to recognize a shift. But since you claimed that the shift was being "ignored" as marketing and propaganda, isn't highlighting that shift effectively the same? I find it more so actually since politics changed naturally so it's the activist position to claim what the parties "really" are based on a selection from the past.
And immigration refers to people, not trade. Clinton made this speech [1] in 1995, but if any Democrat made the same speech today they would be vilified. That shows the left hasn't shifted to the right at all, they shifted even more to the left.
> Again, in relation to what? It's the right, as according to current American politics because that's the context.
The world. Historical American politics. A larger context. I'm repeating myself and you're ignoring it. Please stop asking questions that have already been answered. If you have objections to using a larger context, state them, but don't pretend I didn't answer your question already.
> Things would be different still if we went back to the Civil War or Ancient Greece.
Yes. You can pick specific contexts in which the modern american republican party was downright progressive. But you have to cherrypick those contexts, as you just did. Saying "world politics today" is a fairly objective measure, is it not? I mean there are even parties in Europe that are right-of-the-Republicans, so it isn't as though they're the furthest right. It's just that the Europeans call those parties fascist, and in some cases the parties embrace that label. Here people get annoyed when you do that.
> I'm not, I'm asking simple questions that go unanswered. The only reasoning I received was that you want people to recognize a shift. But since you claimed that the shift was being "ignored" as marketing and propaganda, isn't highlighting that shift effectively the same?
You're still ignoring it, and we're still discussing semantics, not politics. Do you want to have a productive conversation, or do you want to keep avoiding discussion of actual policies?
> I find it more so actually since politics changed naturally so it's the activist position to claim what the parties "really" are based on a selection from the past.
I can't parse this.
> And immigration refers to people, not trade. Clinton made this speech [1] in 1995, but if any Democrat made the same speech today they would be vilified. That shows the left hasn't shifted to the right at all, they shifted even more to the left.
This is the first time you said the word "immigration". I'm done.
The first makes no sense and still lacks any explanation. The other two are arbitrary.
These parties are left-vs-right as of 2020 American politics. The definitions are dependent on the context of the time and place because politics change over time. They are also relative to each other; Left means left of the right, and vice versa. And center means in the middle of both. It's the current era that determines where the spectrum is actually anchored.
Why are you so insistent on using some other scale to label everything differently? What purpose does that serve? Is that not meaningless semantics?