Validity of Left-Right Divide Concerns

This is from my notes for the future "Why Left Always Wins" article for my Dark Enlightenment blog. I thought to post it because it shows my idea of the "left-center-right" divide:
- conservatism is incapable of countering progressivism
- today's political spectrum consists of the left and center - there is no right wing (traditionalism)
- due to political culture of compromise, all conservatism achieves is putting brakes on "progress": yesterday's progressives are today's conservatives
- only reactionarism / traditionalism is capable of countering progressivism, but this requires education, where progressivism only requires imagination and conservatism requires nothing
- but education is in hands of the left, leaving no room for traditionalism

So basically:
Left: progressivism - aimed at introducing new stuff
Center: conservatism - aimed at maintaining the current status quo
Right: traditionalism - aimed at returning to traditional values and societal setup

Aldarion said:

This is from my notes for the future "Why Left Always Wins" article for my Dark Enlightenment blog. I thought to post it because it shows my idea of the "left-center-right" divide:
- conservatism is incapable of countering progressivism
- today's political spectrum consists of the left and center - there is no right wing (traditionalism)
- due to political culture of compromise, all conservatism achieves is putting brakes on "progress": yesterday's progressives are today's conservatives
- only reactionarism / traditionalism is capable of countering progressivism, but this requires education, where progressivism only requires imagination and conservatism requires nothing
- but education is in hands of the left, leaving no room for traditionalism

So basically:
Left: progressivism - aimed at introducing new stuff
Center: conservatism - aimed at maintaining the current status quo
Right: traditionalism - aimed at returning to traditional values and societal setup

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I think an ideal society actually should incorporate elements of all three. We (I'm not American, but applicable to any society) look back to our shared past, values and traditions to unite us, while looking forward to discard and improve the bad portions of our culture and society (like slavery), and introducing new values that improve upon the good we already have (like creating new values and traditions in addition to the old ones, for example so that black people, who can't look too far back into history without recoiling in horror, can feel like they belong), and also preserving the values that are worth preserving and guard them from ideological attacks (enlightenment, the constitution).

A purely progressivist society will either fragment and become anarchic or become completely degenerate and valueless, a purely conservatist society will become stagnant, and a purely traditionalist society will alienate a lot of people and will likely destroy itself because it will not adapt to a changing world.

Too bad American (and not only American) society is so divided that these different elements can't cooperate.

Honestly, I think the sort of heavily romanticized "traditional" small-town religious Butlerian-Jihad community focused sort of society could possibly drive an individual crazy

And also be way too restrictive to the point that even the guys of Baen Books would be considered "highly immoral" for having content that isn't exactly G-Rated

GoldRanger said:

I think an ideal society actually should incorporate elements of all three. We (I'm not American, but applicable to any society) look back to our shared past, values and traditions to unite us, while looking forward to discard and improve the bad portions of our culture and society (like slavery), and introducing new values that improve upon the good we already have (like creating new values and traditions in addition to the old ones, for example so that black people, who can't look too far back into history without recoiling in horror, can feel like they belong), and also preserving the values that are worth preserving and guard them from ideological attacks (enlightenment, the constitution).

A purely progressivist society will either fragment and become anarchic or become completely degenerate and valueless, a purely conservatist society will become stagnant, and a purely traditionalist society will alienate a lot of people and will likely destroy itself because it will not adapt to a changing world.

Too bad American (and not only American) society is so divided that these different elements can't cooperate.

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...and you summed up the entire issue. A healthy society requires progressive, conservative and traditionalist elements in order to adapt and survive, but modern mentality (specifically as introduced by Marxist revolutionary thought) and society (as structured by democratic competition for votes) are inherently opposed to such cooperation.

Aldarion said:

...and you summed up the entire issue. A healthy society requires progressive, conservative and traditionalist elements in order to adapt and survive, but modern mentality (specifically as introduced by Marxist revolutionary thought) and society (as structured by democratic competition for votes) are inherently opposed to such cooperation.

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I think there’s the problem in that many “progressives” are actually Regressives

They do NOT care about minorities, if they did they would take issue with sexism and homophobia by muslims or black-on-black crime

No, they’re Narcissistic Sociopaths who like feigning compassion as a way to beat people in the head and get away with it all

As the person who post inadvertently began the thread, I feel I should post here. Where am I at? I am not sure. As much as I am disgusted with the behavior of the left, I am not overly nuts about Trump either. I don't hate him to the point of NeverTrump, but he was not my first choice in 2016, and he's not my choice now. That said, there is no way I will vote for Biden.

My own issues with the left?

1. "Do as I say, not as I do." I've had a lot of personal experience with this, in a lot of environments. I personally find this a huge moral failing. If you can't walk the walk, don't talk the talk. Many lefties I know or have known suffer from this issue.

2. Dogmatic belief structure. I don't like anything I can't take or leave. I tend to be an ala carte Republican. It's who I am, and I don't make apologies for it. My main thrust of my belief structure? Leave me alone. It's that simple. If you leave me alone, I will do the same. Trust me, I have no interest in poking into your business. But, in my own personal experience? It's always the left-leaning folks who, while perhaps well-meaning, tend to poke their nose into my business to a point that really pisses me off. If I want to own a firearm? That's my business. What consenting adults do in private to me, is their business. The left has a puritanical streak that really makes me pissed of late.

3. "The Man" argument. Oh, but there is something to it. You see, I wasn't always so successful. At one point, when I was married to my first wife, she was involved in various social support systems (she was schizophrenic and thus, had a lot of DC focused help, it did bupkus). She was part of a day program that got her a part-time job prepping meeting rooms at various contractors in the area. Well, the funding ran out and she lost her job. She did the thing we all do...she applied for unemployment. Guess what, the day program SUED her for the unemployment she had received because buried in the agreement was a clause that signed over her unemployment to the day program. It was in REALLY small print, and when I went to meet with those bastards, and yes, they were bastards, they kept lecturing me on "what can you do for <program deleted because it's not important>." No, they have an interest in keeping folks poor. Why? Because it keeps these bastards employed. And the worst part, what they did was fully legal under DC law.

4. The soft and not so soft racism. My current wife is Chinese. She is a wonderful girl whom I disagree with passionately on politics (She is a through and through liberal, guess what? No desire to change her). But even she will utter things like "White people (sigh and eye roll)" and yes, I leap on her rhetorically when she does that. Or to hear about certain African-American or Latino activists wanting segregated college housing? What's next? Miscegenation laws? I love my wife. I am not divorcing her because the state says so. And if we have kids? No, you are not harming them without going through me first! I may be nearing 50, overweight, epileptic, and blind as a bat without my glasses, but I will fight like a demon.

5. I was also hit by Obamacare. My insurance went from "reasonably affordable and a pretty good plan" to "What the hell is this?" I had a deductible that was so damn high, it was useless.

6. And finally, all I hear when we wack the crap out of some bad actors overseas from the left is "Gee we should not have done that!" Um, no. And ask Private Joe Snuffy when he usually gets a decent wage, and when he's on food stamps? You can guess.

So, for all of those reasons, I don't vote Dem.

Aldarion said:

...and you summed up the entire issue. A healthy society requires progressive, conservative and traditionalist elements in order to adapt and survive, but modern mentality (specifically as introduced by Marxist revolutionary thought) and society (as structured by democratic competition for votes) are inherently opposed to such cooperation.

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Marxist revolutionary thought is complete garbage, a fat mind-virus that feeds on the misery in the world in order to create even more misery and death in the guise of trying solve the previous misery (usually with a lot of empty promises without cover), and thus it keeps propagating itself. I'm not even going to discuss that disgusting piece of flaming shite, it's not any more worth of a discussion than Nazism is. McCarthy had the right idea as far as I'm concerned (even if his implementation wasn't great).

Now your second point, that's more nuanced and debatable. The democratic system, strictly speaking, doesn't absolutely have to be a competition between progress, conservation and traditionalism. In theory, different parties can have a mix of trad/cons/prog values but still be in democratic competition with each other.

In fact, I consider myself a centrist precisely because I have a mix of beliefs that don't perfectly mesh with any one left or right wing ideology.

-I'm an atheist who is pro-choice, but I support strong national borders with strict control.

-I believe that the government has the right and duty to regulate the market to prevent unfair and unbalanced situations that can cause damage or exploitations of individuals, but at the same time it has to be a minimalist approach, a light touch, the government can never be allowed to dictate the market itself, the market should be free with a minor rule here and there, designed to foster competition and prevent cheating, but that's it.

-I believe that climate change is a real issue that we MUST tackle, but I don't believe in monstrous, draconian measures that will kill the economy or inhibit technological progress. I believe there are measures we can take to protect the environment and curb climate change without stupid populist measures. Switching to nuclear energy, for example.

-I believe in a strong military, with a strong deterrent, and that a country should not be afraid to use it to defend itself. Well... I don't think I hold a left-wing belief to balance that.

So where do I belong? Nowhere. I hold bits and pieces of beliefs from different parties, that's I'll need to build like a jigsaw puzzle if I want to be fairly represented. If my country had a two-party system it would have been even worse for me.

Why do virtually all democracies drift into a dichotomy of "left-wing bag of randomly jumbled-together values" vs "right-wing bag of randomly jumbled-together values"? No idea. Would be very interesting to find out. Maybe somebody else has an insight on that.

CurtisLemay said:

4. The soft and not so soft racism. My current wife is Chinese. She is a wonderful girl whom I disagree with passionately on politics (She is a through and through liberal, guess what? No desire to change her).

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Huge respect. My wife shares my political beliefs, except she might be a bit to the right of me (well, she used to be a self-declared feminist, right up to the point where feminism has gone insane and anti-men, then she bailed). Honestly, I can't imagine marrying and living with someone who holds views that are outright opposite of mine, especially those that are deemed "progressive", which I often find infuriating. Kudos for respecting your wife's beliefs.

GoldRanger said:

Huge respect. My wife shares my political beliefs, except she might be a bit to the right of me (well, she used to be a self-declared feminist, right up to the point where feminism has gone insane and anti-men, then she bailed). Honestly, I can't imagine marrying and living with someone who holds views that are outright opposite of mine, especially those that are deemed "progressive", which I often find infuriating. Kudos for respecting your wife's beliefs.

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Love doesn't and should NOT care about politics. Neither should friendship. Wish the younger generation took that advice.

CurtisLemay said:

Love doesn't and should NOT care about politics. Neither should friendship. Wish the younger generation took that advice.

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I understand what you're talking about, but that's a naive ideal, and then there's the reality. In theory love shouldn't care about financial situation or physical look either, but in practice things are different. I want my household to be a "safe space" for me when I get back from work, not an exhausting battlefield. It's not like married life doesn't provide plenty of opportunities to fight as it is. I just lucked out with my wife, it's not like I asked her what her politics are on our first date, but I don't think I could have married her without that fundamental compatibility (and a bunch of others).

GoldRanger said:

I understand what you're talking about, but that's a naive ideal, and then there's the reality. In theory love shouldn't care about financial situation or physical look either, but in practice things are different. I want my household to be a "safe space" for me when I get back from work, not an exhausting battlefield. It's not like married life doesn't provide plenty of opportunities to fight as it is. I just lucked out with my wife, it's not like I asked her what her politics are on our first date, but I don't think I could have married her without that fundamental compatibility (and a bunch of others).

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(Shrug) I just don't worry so much and realize, whatever disagreements we have? I love her and she loves me. Hell, she got me a Thrustmaster HOTAS for Star Wars Squadrons (not trying to derail) for our upcoming anniversary. We had just fought last week because my memory is a sieve and I forgot to do the dishes. That and she is convinced the fact I voted libertarian last week was an oblique vote for Trump. I told her "It's my right to vote for whom I please, as is yours. Let's call this tabled?" Guess what, it worked. You get to realize, "don't sweat the small stuff." That said, I'd love her with or without the HOTAS.

But back to the primary discussion. Most Dems I don't have that one on one discussion. I can't get to know them as well. It's drive-by interactions on social media, and the enforced bit of introversion (thank God I am an introvert) we are all enduring of late is making some of us well, batshit crazy. I think it's also contributing to the divide? Do I have some deep-seated issues with the left? Yep, I do. But for most of the time, if they leave me alone, I leave them alone. Lately, they've been violating that part of the social contract, and that's been irking me to no end.

I believe I said this in another thread, but I'll say it here. The fundamental conceit of the left, why I think it is a perpetual threat to good governance and the realm itself, is that it believes it can micromanage a perfect world into existence. Trying to make millions if not billions of variables mesh together does nothing but jam up the gears of society and cause the great machine to break. Not to mention this micromanaging always proves ruinously expensive.

It is the worldview of the grasping control freak who, convinced they are righteous, believes they can fix everything by awarding themselves more power and implementing sweeping social reform. The inevitable end result of that thesis, is the singular peacetime disaster known as Lockdown, for which our children will curse us.

The left has had a hundred years to bring about their nirvana of equality, and all they've left (ha, puns!) in their wake is shattered empires, economies, societies and lives. They can fuck right off back to the scrapheap of history whilst we beg the Classical Liberals of yesteryear for forgiveness, as we abandoned them in favour of this failure. Yes, I would happily exchange Labour for the Whigs of old, what of it?

There are only two factors needed for a healthy society, and those are liberty and tradition. These were somewhat paired together in the 18th and 19th centuries, which also happened to be the heyday of the British Empire. Funny how that works.

Lord Sovereign said:

There are only two factors needed for a healthy society, and those are liberty and tradition. These were somewhat paired together in the 18th and 19th centuries, which also happened to be the heyday of the British Empire. Funny how that works.

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If not tradition, at least a sense of consistency especially when it comes to holding yourself to your own insane standards and actually recognizing faults in others regardless of how you’d end up looking like a “bigot” for pointing it out

ShadowArxxy said:

Since you're talking about specific incidents, I'm going to ask you to show me the video footage you're actually talking about.

That said, I'm not talking about context that makes these violent, criminal actions justified, because there is no such context, and I'm not asserting that there is. The context I'm talking about goes to the assertion that such incidents are typical of the behavior of protesters/rioters, and thus become something that the protest as a whole is collectively responsible for, as opposed to the individuals perpetrating them.

While I will admit that it's by necessity a vague standard, this is the same general thematic that I applied in judging conservative protests here -- that I wasn't going to condemn them based on isolated, individual actions, but on the overall behavior of the protest at large. I think that's a reasonable standard as long as one applies it consistently and not, "I'm going to cut my side slack this way, but not the other side."



I literally just said I *am* condemning violent, criminal actions.



1. As you yourself were just arguing, many of those incidents were not in Portland.

2. I am perfectly willing to acknowledge that I'm not omniscient, but I do ask that you concede that I am in fact seeing what I see.

3. I'm a girl, thanks.

4. My objection to video footage is exactly the same as your own objection to media coverage: it's by definition selective cuts. While yes, I can't see everything, I would argue that firsthand witness gives me a better gauge of the general attitude and "feel" of the crowd. Which, I will again say, for the night crowd is angry and aggressive, it's just not as violent as your take on it is.

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So, these won't all be video, but some links I've collected over the last few months:
















Damage tally just from Minneapolis area back in June:





In animal cruelty notes:

Account from inside Portland Antifa:




I'll leave it there for now. This is less than a quarter of the links I have stored, though admittedly some of the links I have are covering the same incidents from different sources. I'm disappointed I apparently don't have a link saved of the BLM group chanting 'We hope they die' outside a hospital after two officers were attacked while just sitting in their cruiser by a gunman who literally just walked up and shot them.

CurtisLemay said:

(Shrug) I just don't worry so much and realize, whatever disagreements we have? I love her and she loves me. Hell, she got me a Thrustmaster HOTAS for Star Wars Squadrons (not trying to derail) for our upcoming anniversary. We had just fought last week because my memory is a sieve and I forgot to do the dishes. That and she is convinced the fact I voted libertarian last week was an oblique vote for Trump. I told her "It's my right to vote for whom I please, as is yours. Let's call this tabled?" Guess what, it worked. You get to realize, "don't sweat the small stuff." That said, I'd love her with or without the HOTAS.

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Your wife is much better at picking presents than mine, I'll give you that She sounds awesome.

In my case, I feel like love is based on compatibility, you know? We have a ton of things to talk about, and to me, the little political rants we sometimes share together is one of those things that I love about my relationship with her. It may sound inconsequential to you, but it's another thing that brings us closer together. Every relationship is different.

It could be interesting to start a thread about our different takes on these things, actually. Although maybe it's a bit too intimate an issue to truly discuss in depth on an internet board.

Derail ended.

But back to the primary discussion. Most Dems I don't have that one on one discussion. I can't get to know them as well. It's drive-by interactions on social media, and the enforced bit of introversion (thank God I am an introvert) we are all enduring of late is making some of us well, batshit crazy. I think it's also contributing to the divide? Do I have some deep-seated issues with the left? Yep, I do. But for most of the time, if they leave me alone, I leave them alone. Lately, they've been violating that part of the social contract, and that's been irking me to no end.

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I'm not American, and don't live in America, so I only have my conversations with different people, news, media etc to go off of, but my impression is that it's not like the left suddenly broke that social contract one day. It's been something that's been bubbling under the surface for years, with at least a little degree of actual purposeful planning from large left-wing institutions. COVID was just a catalyst, and/or an excuse.

@ShadowArxxy Do not try to pull that gaslighting shit about Leftist violence being 'taken out of context' or 'most riots were peaceful' crap.

We just watched a Trump supporter get murdered by an unlicenced 'security guard' in Denver over the weekend, one hired by the same media who's narrative you are playing up.

This is what I meant up-thread about the lies the Left continues to spout about the Right and about what they themselves do.

Xilizhra said:

You realize that plenty of leftists say the exact same things about you, right? Just with the oligarchs having different names. Personally, I doubt that you receive Kochbucks any more than I receive Sorosbucks, and I'm here because I want to foster better dialogue between two riven sides that are full of misunderstandings of each other.

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I am from Poland,so nobody from USA is funding me - although Soros is funding our leftist and sodomites who attack people on the street for being catholics or rightwings.Or only looking like one.

And differences between right and left both in Poland and USA are:
1.Right when take power,even made dictature,never genocided anybody or try to control everybody live - left always genocided and tried to control every aspect of life.
For example - right do not care if you are trans or not,when left dictate how people should live their private life.

2.Right usually do what they did for their own money - for example, in Poland about 100.000 patriots are coming every 11.november to celebrate polish independence for their own money.
Our leftist are making fuck parades ,becouse they were paid.I bet,that in USA situation is the same - left is funded by Soros,and Tea party by Tea party members.

3.You compared your problem to ours.Did somebody attacked you,or fired for your life style ? and that is difference.
If you do not belive,make experiment - start taking to your leftist friends that Trump is OK or Abortion is bad and play that you belive that - and see how your leftist friend would react.

Or maybe better do not do that.They could kill you.

Discussion is possible,when two sides had the same rights.When one/leftist/ belive that they had right to beat opponent and keep talking about rules after that,taking is no more possible.
And - we should not fear cyvil war.Leftist are used by Soros-like oligarchs,who would never start cyvil war when their opponents still have weapons.As long as we have it,they do not start anything.

ATP said:

I am from Poland,so nobody from USA is funding me - although Soros is funding our leftist and sodomites who attack people on the street for being catholics or rightwings.Or only looking like one.

And differences between right and left both in Poland and USA are:
1.Right when take power,even made dictature,never genocided anybody or try to control everybody live - left always genocided and tried to control every aspect of life.
For example - right do not care if you are trans or not,when left dictate how people should live their private life.

2.Right usually do what they did for their own money - for example, in Poland about 100.000 patriots are coming every 11.november to celebrate polish independence for their own money.
Our leftist are making fuck parades ,becouse they were paid.I bet,that in USA situation is the same - left is funded by Soros,and Tea party by Tea party members.

3.You compared your problem to ours.Did somebody attacked you,or fired for your life style ? and that is difference.
If you do not belive,make experiment - start taking to your leftist friends that Trump is OK or Abortion is bad and play that you belive that - and see how your leftist friend would react.

Or maybe better do not do that.They could kill you.

Discussion is possible,when two sides had the same rights.When one/leftist/ belive that they had right to beat opponent and keep talking about rules after that,taking is no more possible.
And - we should not fear cyvil war.Leftist are used by Soros-like oligarchs,who would never start cyvil war when their opponents still have weapons.As long as we have it,they do not start anything.

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Maybe Soros could be arrested and given to the Russians, they really hate him from what I've heard.

CarlManvers2019 said:

I think there’s the problem in that many “progressives” are actually Regressives

They do NOT care about minorities, if they did they would take issue with sexism and homophobia by muslims or black-on-black crime

No, they’re Narcissistic Sociopaths who like feigning compassion as a way to beat people in the head and get away with it all

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Oh, that is certainly true. In fact, many people I have talked to who leaned in Progressive direction did so without really understanding issues as hand, as a way to show off how "advanced" and "humane" they were.

GoldRanger said:

Now your second point, that's more nuanced and debatable. The democratic system, strictly speaking, doesn't absolutely have to be a competition between progress, conservation and traditionalism. In theory, different parties can have a mix of trad/cons/prog values but still be in democratic competition with each other.

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Ideally, it would be. But nowadays, traditionalism has largely been eliminated while conservativism is little more than refined BS garbage for reasons already discussed elsewhere (but basically - today's conservatives are yesteryear's progressives).

GoldRanger said:

-I'm an atheist who is pro-choice, but I support strong national borders with strict control.

-I believe that the government has the right and duty to regulate the market to prevent unfair and unbalanced situations that can cause damage or exploitations of individuals, but at the same time it has to be a minimalist approach, a light touch, the government can never be allowed to dictate the market itself, the market should be free with a minor rule here and there, designed to foster competition and prevent cheating, but that's it.

-I believe that climate change is a real issue that we MUST tackle, but I don't believe in monstrous, draconian measures that will kill the economy or inhibit technological progress. I believe there are measures we can take to protect the environment and curb climate change without stupid populist measures. Switching to nuclear energy, for example.

-I believe in a strong military, with a strong deterrent, and that a country should not be afraid to use it to defend itself. Well... I don't think I hold a left-wing belief to balance that.

So where do I belong? Nowhere. I hold bits and pieces of beliefs from different parties, that's I'll need to build like a jigsaw puzzle if I want to be fairly represented. If my country had a two-party system it would have been even worse for me.

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Personally? I:
- am panentheist with very strong dislike of the (current-day) Catholic Church
- am pro-lifer but against legal forbiddance of abortion (I believe in non-legal measures such as culture, education etc.)
- supports strong national borders
- believe that large anything is evil, be it large state or large corporations - which then means that measure of state control is necessary to prevent formation of massive corporations, but at the same time government should never control market itself
- believe that uncontrolled technological advancement is evil but if we have to advance we should take care of the environment
- believe in strong military but also believe that large standing army is not a good thing

So according to modern Lef-Right divide, where would I fall on?

GoldRanger said:

Why do virtually all democracies drift into a dichotomy of "left-wing bag of randomly jumbled-together values" vs "right-wing bag of randomly jumbled-together values"? No idea. Would be very interesting to find out. Maybe somebody else has an insight on that.

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I think it is partly because most democratic systems are deliberately structured to be two-party affairs. Second is voters' tendency to vote "against" - basically, "I hate these guys and don't want them in power, so I will vote for these guys I hate slightly less just so the first guys don't get into power".

Democracy is a joke.

Aldarion said:

Democracy is a joke.

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To a degree, yes. Still better than all alternatives ever conceived by man.