| I list here a few resources for understanding different social sytems and points of
view as portrayed "online". At one time I attempted to provide balance, however I have decided that is a naive and
ultimately impossible task, largely because of an utter lack of common ground between left, middle, up, down, and right.
The left utilizes tactics designed to prevent or subvert dialog and understanding, most clearly described in Saul Alinsky's "Rules for Radicals". These tactics include concepts of "the end justifies the means", meaning, whatever is your goal, you can and ought to use any means (including lying and violence) to get there. He's right, so far as it goes, but it is very short sighted -- no sooner than you arrive at your goal, having obliterated your opponents, than a whole new crop of radicals now considers YOU to be the establishment and they stomp on you in the course of establishing yet another social system. I do not yet know what exactly is the right so I cannot very well comment on it. ALL forms of government exist to control people. A more meaningful axis therefore is LIBERTY; how much of it does any system grant it subjects; versus how much control do the subjects grant their government. | ||
| LEFT Communitarian, Groupthink, Emotional | MIDDLE and OTHER Broad spectrum | RIGHT Libertarian, Individualist, Rational |
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Info on the left:
Wikipedia: Left Wing Politics" Also, search Marx, Lenin, Saul Alinsky, Lyndon B Johnson, Labor Unions Left Wing Websites that are informative and allow or encourage meaningful dialog: (None) www.rawstory.com A liberal aggregator and some commentary. www.msnbc.com Liberal Left Mainstream Media www.msnbc.com Moderate Left Mainstream Media, allows contrary opinion responses. |
www.drudgereport.com "Top News" Link Aggregator, no comments.
www.breitbart.com Center/right government news and opinion. www.cnsnews.com "Top News" Link Aggregator www.digg.com Popular items, neither left nor right, comments lean left. www.foxnews.com Centrist, maybe slightly rightwing, news source. |
Comments usually invited and tend to be paragraph length. Opposition tolerated but not perhaps encouraged;
tends to be one-line insults and ridicule; the linguistic currency of the left
bighollywood.breitbart.com Exposing liberal bias in Hollywood
biggovernment.breitbart.com www.glennbeck.com Finding hidden agendas in government. Advocacy. www.townhall.com Advocacy. |
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Motivation:
The left needs security in community. Because of psychological projection, leaders are believed
to have the same motivation -- putting community first -- also known as "empathy". Empathy is
a useful trait, but it is easily manipulated by others. Just say that a million Bangladeshi's
are going to die when the oceans rise 300 feet day after tomorrow and the leftist will melt down
into a puddle of willing compliance and do whatever he is asked; cough up money usually and demand
more from neighbors and family. The left can be spotted by its succession of declarations of emergencies.
An animal kingdom model is the herd. The herd will always be accompanied by a herder, who is also their predator and not usually himself a communitarian. In political terms, the herd is the Proletariat and the herders the Elite, those that are "more equal"; government will be the shim between Elitei or Bourgeoisie (the owners of production; above the government) and Proletariat (below the government, feeding it and benefiting from it). Social control is shame, shun and other rewards and punishments. A social implementation of this is the Feudal System with only two classes of person; aristocracy and peasants (Lord/Serf, that sort of thing). A modern implementation of this is a labor union; the union boss (very privileged), and union members. |
Motivation: The right puts more faith in SELF to provide security. Libertarians
are similar in this regard; the main difference between "right" and "libertarian" (IMO)
is that "right" wants distributed government and "libertarian" would prefer that people behave
sensibly with minimum government. As that is not likely to actually happen, libertarians
tend to vote "right" as being preferable to the dangerous, unresponsive, monolithic
socialist government of the left.
Leaders will be chosen for topical or subject-matter expertse and have a specific role or duty that comes into existence thereby. Social status is broad-spectrum and largely earned through one's own efforts. Social control will be somewhat limited to self-defense and agreements on areas of possible conflict, such as highway safety rules and regulations. A premium is placed on liberty. I consider it probable that all leaders are "right" even when leading a large herd of "left". A social implementation of this is "small business" also local governments. Libertarians understand the need for government, but want it small, local, and responsive to its citizens. As such, it becomes impossible for a tyrant to become all-powerful because social power is distributed widely. |
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Left and right speak to community versus self, liberal versus conservative speak to "liberated" from rules and conformity, or "conserving" established traditions.
It is entirely possible to be a liberal leftist or a conservative leftist; also a liberal rightist or a conservative rightist. If we replace "leftist" with "communitarian" and "rightist" with "libertarian" then it makes a bit more sense.
A liberal communitarian will try the newest fads in making communities more equal. These experiments are almost certainly doomed, expensive and coercive; leading to the derisive label of "liberal" for such persons. Each person has a "moral compass" that justifies and perhaps requires them to behave in certain ways, but no two persons moral compasses point in the same direction -- that is to say, such persons do not accept authority but wish to BE authority over others to make everything better. See Saul Alinsky's "Rules For Radicals" for more commentary on the liberal-left
A conservative communitarian will stick to the plan laid down by Karl Marx, who was of course a liberal communitarian in his own day, but has become conservative through antiquity. Not many of this kind exist since Marxism, Leninism, Stalinism, Maoism have all failed.
A liberal libertarian will do whatever he or she wants without adherence to any particular set of rules or morals. Another word for this kind is "anarchist". This kinds tends to be "amoral" and succeeds for a time as leaders of the left, where their lack of rulebook and internal morals allows them to pretend to be pretty much anything.
A conservative libertarian will conserve a set of ethics, morals or rules and tend to heed those rules. This kind neither wants nor needs "leaders"; the rules are "in the book". This kind places faith in principles rather than people; and the purpose of those principles will be to elevate, educate, and make perfect a person (self). Only when "self" is educated and made perfect can he or she become useful to society.
Conflict vectors:. Seems to me that the largest conflict opportunities are going to be between liberal communitarians, their social control imperative and lack of fixed moral compass coming into conflict with conservative libertarians who have a fixed moral compass and resist social control.
Myers-Briggs MBTI Alignments: It is possible, maybe probable, that The MBTI "E/I" vector aligns with the groupiness of the leftist communitarian ("E") versus the individualistic sense of the rightist libertarian ("I"). It is also probable that "liberal/conservative" relates to the "F/T" axis, with liberal related to "feeling" and conservative related to "thinking". Reasoning: Liberals do not conform to documented rules, they DO respond to leaders and situations emotionally. This suggests a dominant "F" (feeling). Conservatives conform to documented rules and do NOT respond well to leaders, suggesting a dominant "T" (thinking), which is a function of reading books, learning rules and obeying them.
As such, we might lay it out like this:
EF: liberal communitarian (leftist, common)
ET: conservative communitarian (leftist, rare)
IF: liberal libertarian (right wing anarchist, common)
IT: conservative libertarian (right wing traditionalist, common)
Colloqial meanings:
"You are a liberal" means I don't like you and you just make up facts as you need them.
"You are a conservative" means I don't like you and your slick argument still does not change my mind.
"I am a liberal" means I am not going to obey you, but I might obey a famous Leader or movie celebrity.
"I am a conservative" means I am not going to obey you, but I might obey a documented moral reference (Bible, Constitution).
Sources: