Forgive my ignorance on this subject, about 90% of the truths I’ve learned about the American political system I’ve learned from the Dope.
I was chatting with my friend who has a degree in politics and we had an interesting idea.
The USA has traditionally been anti-left wing politics, anti-communism, anti-socialism. In many ways the USA is the other end of the spectrum.
In any political system you get loonies. People who use politics as a cover to spread their loony-ism. There’s no way of knowing which side of the political spectrum they’re gonna fall on of course. They get everywhere.
But in the USA the extreme left loonies are not gonna find safe harbour in any main stream political groups. Those groups are not gonna allow such people to give them a bad reputation because the nation as a whole has traditionally been against those attitudes.
However in the extreme right it would be easier for a person to hide his loonyness and blend in, as the things the extreme right preach do not automatically ring alarm bells with as many people.
The most extreme right Americans I hear about are on TV for pete’s sake!
Feel free to tear me apart and fight my ignorance.
Disclaimer: This is not politically motivated. I have no dog in this fight, as I’m not directly affected by the American political system, and I’ve learned that being ‘Right Wing’ does not mean that you’re bat-shit crazy. Thanks to the dope. I just think bat shit-crazy people who happen to be right wing stand more chance of being heard.
I think you’re right – at least for now. These things tend to move in slow cycles. There was a time when actual Communism had some traction in American political talk; today that would seem ridiculous, and I hope that a couple of generations from now, the stuff spouted by the current extreme right-wingers will seem nostalgically amusing. (I can see Ann Coulter becoming a stock comic character. Come to think of it, I guess she already is.)
Yes, the father of my aunt on my dad’s side (by marriage) was an American Communist named DeWitt Gilpin who was a decorated WWII veteran and a UAW leader. My grandpa (who is not a communist, but is a hardcore union man) once worked in a plant closely tied to Gus Hall, the head of the American Communist Party. It was indeed a powerful force, long ago.
Then again, so was eugenics. Both were eventually disgraced after World War II.
Correct. People ignored the miltia movement until Timothy McVeigh blew up a building. The FBI is more likely to wiretap the ACLU or the Quakers than any right wing group.
When you get right down to it, if you are on the right you don’t need to hide your loonyness at all; you just need to avoid doing anything so spectacular that the authorities can’t avoid going through the motions of caring.
Had I to guess, tolerance for extreme-right and extreme-left waxes and wanes. There was some left-leaning during the Carter Administration, swung right during Reagan, edged left during Clinton, swung right after Sept. 11, is easing back with dissatisfaction over the Iraq slog… we’ll see who wins in 2008 and the cycle will continue.
Most of the extreme right have been made to feel fairly comfortable in the Republican party. And you hear far more of them on the media than your “extreme left.”
The loonies at BOTH extremes are pretty much considered what they are…loonies. The problem, of course, is the definition of exactly where the center is…and what is or is not loonie.
From who’s perspective? For your (European) perspective? Or from our (American) one? Again, the problem is where you put the center. From MY perspective, neither the ‘extreme’ left NOR the ‘extreme’ right gets much traction in the US. However, what YOU consider ‘extreme’ left and ‘extreme’ right probably varies to my own.
Certainly I think that left leaning (from an American perspective) folks DO get plenty of traction here in the states…just like right leaning (from an American perspective) folks do.
For clarification, maybe someone would bother to define their terms here? Exactly what IS ‘loony left’ and ‘loony right’?
:dubious: If its on mainstream TV, perhaps you can wrap your mind around the fact that, well, this isn’t Europe? And that our perspective might be a tad different as to what is or is not ‘extreme’?
Again, define your terms…and give some examples of how ‘The most extreme right’ is found on TV these days.
-XT
I don’t agree. There has been vascillation between left and right. Look at FDR’s programs in the 1930s and 1940’s. Look at the 1960s and the Civil Rights Act. Look at Lyndon Johnson’s landslide victory over Conservative Barry Goldwater in 1964.
Even Ben Franklin established such socialist programs as public libraries and fire departments. Yes, that’s what socialism looks like.
Socialists and Communists are around you everywhere. You say there has been one on the SDMB? There is no telling how many there have been. It’s just that they don’t glow red and their posts don’e reek of evil the way you would think. Some of you have a stereotype in your mind.
I’ve known several Communists during my lifetime. One was in the high school English department where I taught. She wasn’t out to overthrown the government by violent means. She didn’t lurk in dark doorways. She was too busy grading papers and listening to Kris Kristofferson. But her political philosophy was in agreement with Communism. She was bright and very kind and funny.
Another that I knew organized a group that lived together as Communists with no personal property. Her mother ran for national political office as a Communist. The daughter was mature, pleasant and serious. I admired the courage of her convictions. (I had known her first as a child.)
I was married to a Socialist. I guess I’m pretty much a Socialist myself. I think that the United States would be improved by returning to its roots There is too much of a gap now between the uberiche and the poor. I’m not wanting to overthrow our government. I would like to see a return to an even playing field. The day that lobbyists have to lobby and woo the people will be a good sign.
And although my father was a Democrat, he did believe in “To each according to his need; from each, according to his ability.” He practiced that too. He was a Christian.
I think that Americans, by traditions, have always been generous and compassionate risk-takers. That’s not conservative at all.
Come now. You’re deliberately making the edges of socialism so fuzzy here that it means anything, and thus essentially nothing.
If socialism is to be a coherent political platform, it must draw distinctions and firm political positions, and surely not mean any political position that supports fire departments.
But that is just hoow vague it is. We aren’t talking about a specific political party or even a coherent political movement/philosophy, but a vague political . . . attitude. Socialism is as broad a term as, say, traditionalism.
And in America public libraries are atypically socialist, and probably wouldn’t be possible to create in the modern age.
The constant war from the right on anything slightly artistic funded by the government, or anything you don’t pay though the nose for, or anything that isn’t doctrinaire right wing . And the the constant lobbying from the people who want you to pay for every glimpse of copyrighted materiel; these are the sort of people who propose the elimination of books and newspapers because the library or you yourself can loan them to people who haven’t paid. And eye trackers on computers to make sure nobody who’s not paying is reading over your shoulder.
Without government inertia, these sort of people would be able to strangle anything like a public library system in it’s cradle; for that matter I wouldn’t be at all surprised to see public libraries outlawed in my lifetime.
BrainGlutton is a member of the American Socialist party, so we do currently have one in residence even if he tends to be unwilling to opine on anything much.
The super crazy right wingers aren’t like Rush Limbaugh. They’re the ones stockpiling weapons and starting cults. They’re the fundamentalist Mormons who insist on practicing polygamy. There is no safe haven for these people in mainstream American politics, just like there’s no safe haven for a true communist to blend in to.
It does seem to me like the right is a little more “right” than the left is “left” in America, but I’m not at all convinced that it’s more than my confirmation bias at work.
Even if I accept this (which I don’t…I seem to recall many rich folks who you would consider ‘right wingers’ who have donated truly staggering sums for all kinds of stuff…including one knobbly nosed rich guy that donated a library or some such IIRC), all things artistic do not HAVE to spring forth from the governments purse. Also, you have a very exaggerated idea of exactly how much influence the right really has (not to mention a rather tenuous grasp of history) if you seriously think that but for history we’d have no libraries today…
Again, even if I accept this as true we are talking about a VERY small percentage of folks who what to take things to those kinds of extremes. Seriously, you need to get a grip and get out more.
:dubious: … :rolleyes: And the rest of us would just go along, sheep-like in our complacency? Where do you get this stuff from? What historical precedence do you base it on? Can you point to anyone who isn’t a complete nut case wanting to do away with public libraries (IOW do you have a cite to back up your case, or is it, as usual, faith based on a rather murky understanding of how America actually works)? I’ve never heard even the most rabid Libertarian (who aren’t exactly ‘right wingers’) say such a stupid thing. In your lifetime?? Man…you need a SERIOUS reality check…