Elizabeth Warren: The People's Champion

a reply to: Quetzalcoatl14

On point! in their universe socialist = fascist = communist, right winged dictators never existed.

a reply to: Quetzalcoatl14

“The American people will never knowingly adopt socialism. But, under the name of “liberalism,” they will adopt every fragment of the socialist program, until one day America will be a socialist nation, without knowing how it happened. I no longer need to run as a Presidential Candidate for the Socialist Party. The Democratic Party has adopted our platform.”

― Norman Thomas (Six-time presidential candidate for the Socialist Party of America)
www.goodreads.com...

The Democrats are socialist, which is totalitarian.
The Republicans are one or two generations behind the Democrats. Some Republicans need social security now, which is a progressive addiction. Today's Republicans are yesterdays Democrats.

Modern political words are all relative to other modern political words. Modern political words have no meaning other than acceptance of bigger, more totalitarian, government.

If Left has any concrete meaning, it means -- use of the state.

If Right has any concrete meaning, it means -- use of the social order.

Calvin Coolidge was the last rightist president. All has been left and lefter since then.

a reply to: FlyersFan

Why would a nonparty have a primary?

But they ARE "parties"!

There is the Green Party, for example (sorry, I've been up since 2am and my brain is tired) - it is definitely a "party". What about the Libertarians? Aren't they a separate party? There are several "parties" registered and campaigning. But only Dems and Reps have "primaries" - as far as I can tell.

I am aware that I can 'register' for whatever party in order to vote in the primaries - for either a Dem or a Rep. But the 3rd parties don't have primaries - THAT is what I'm talking about.

Why should I have to switch to Dem or Rep in order to choose the best of the candidates on offer (without regard to what their "party" is)? I'm capable of reading up on the various Dems or Reps and deciding which of them I would prefer to be representing THAT party - but I'm not allowed unless I "join" their club? It's silly.

In my opinion. Besides - in case you missed Mr Wigs' experience - he was told he couldn't even vote on the other measures (which were NOT partisan decisions) like taxes for the area, or judges....
which isn't true - but he left the polling place after being admonished that he wasn't allowed.
At least that's the way he told it. I wasn't there, so he may have just shut down when she said "No" and not prodded her for the ballots that were NOT primary-related.

originally posted by: BuzzyWigs
a reply to: FlyersFan

Why would a nonparty have a primary?

But they ARE "parties"!

There is the Green Party, for example (sorry, I've been up since 2am and my brain is tired) - it is definitely a "party". What about the Libertarians? Aren't they a separate party? There are several "parties" registered and campaigning. But only Dems and Reps have "primaries" - as far as I can tell.

I am aware that I can 'register' for whatever party in order to vote in the primaries - for either a Dem or a Rep. But the 3rd parties don't have primaries - THAT is what I'm talking about.

Why should I have to switch to Dem or Rep in order to choose the best of the candidates on offer (without regard to what their "party" is)? I'm capable of reading up on the various Dems or Reps and deciding which of them I would prefer to be representing THAT party - but I'm not allowed unless I "join" their club? It's silly.

In my opinion. Besides - in case you missed Mr Wigs' experience - he was told he couldn't even vote on the other measures (which were NOT partisan decisions) like taxes for the area, or judges....
which isn't true - but he left the polling place after being admonished that he wasn't allowed.
At least that's the way he told it. I wasn't there, so he may have just shut down when she said "No" and not prodded her for the ballots that were NOT primary-related.

Mr. Wigs might have wanted to submit a write in vote.

On November 2, 1954, Strom Thurmond won with 63 percent of the vote and thereby became the first person ever elected to the Senate as a write-in candidate in the general election.
www.senate.gov...

The current system restricts who can get voted for, because a person can only vote for names on the official ballot. In the good old days, the ballots were simply paper from where ever.

archive.fairvote.org...

CSPAN has the Libertarian primaries in a video library. The Greens are there to I think.

The 2012 Libertarian Candidate for POTUS, Gary Johnson, said

Politicians should wear donor tags on their suits like NASCAR



and

The ballots should offer "none of the above"

a reply to: Semicollegiate

The ballots should offer "none of the above"

Yes, they should. That's what Mr Wigs wanted to write in.

Also - as an aside - I thought Gary Johnson was the Green Party candidate....but, I may very well be mistaken about that.

originally posted by: BuzzyWigs
a reply to: Semicollegiate

The ballots should offer "none of the above"

Yes, they should. That's what Mr Wigs wanted to write in.

Also - as an aside - I thought Gary Johnson was the Green Party candidate....but, I may very well be mistaken about that.

Libertarians are for less government, Greens are for Green, Yankee, totalitarian, government.

You could have a Green region in a libertarian society, as long as it is voluntary.

Gary Johnson is a Libertarian

www.c-span.org...

Unfortunately,

Most global political scientists actually consider Democrats to be dead center on the political scale and Republicans to be on the right.

Old terms have flopped. For example, "neo-liberalism" is the complete opposite traditionally of communism or socialism (i.e. far left wing). Neo-liberalism used to mean exactly what the laizze-faire economists and Republicans claim to want, complete free trade, no regulations, etc ad infinitum. This is a right wing push, NOT left wing.

To simplify, left wing totalitarian means overly centralized control by the state, government or what have you. Too much, not the mere presence of control such as regulation.

Right wing totalitarianism is rule by special interests, corporations, and dictators and leaders owned or aligned with these interests. Mussolini himself said that Fascism was defined by the merger of corporation and state. This is what we see happening in America. An element of right wing totalitarianism also is hyper-nationalism, often rigid obedience to tradition, and racial/ethnic obsession. These are also characteristics of right wing parties and leaders worldwide, from Republican ones such as Bush to their opposite counterparts in such countries as Iran or Afghanistan. That is why the religious right in America is often called the "American Taliban."

I think it is important to wake up and realize that ANY belief or ideology can be abused and become dangerous if someone is radical enough or there are no checks and balances in a government.

This is why there have been both religious and atheistic revolutionary violent groups. This is why there have been both
right-wing fascist monsters and there have been left wing communist monsters.

Only fools think that everybody else but them is prone to error and has the potential for abuse.

originally posted by: Semicollegiate
a reply to: Quetzalcoatl14

“The American people will never knowingly adopt socialism. But, under the name of “liberalism,” they will adopt every fragment of the socialist program, until one day America will be a socialist nation, without knowing how it happened. I no longer need to run as a Presidential Candidate for the Socialist Party. The Democratic Party has adopted our platform.”

― Norman Thomas (Six-time presidential candidate for the Socialist Party of America)
www.goodreads.com...

The Democrats are socialist, which is totalitarian.
The Republicans are one or two generations behind the Democrats. Some Republicans need social security now, which is a progressive addiction. Today's Republicans are yesterdays Democrats.

Modern political words are all relative to other modern political words. Modern political words have no meaning other than acceptance of bigger, more totalitarian, government.

If Left has any concrete meaning, it means -- use of the state.

If Right has any concrete meaning, it means -- use of the social order.

Calvin Coolidge was the last rightist president. All has been left and lefter since then.

a reply to: Quetzalcoatl14

Mussolini himself said that Fascism was defined by the merger of corporation and state. This is what we see happening in America. An element of right wing totalitarianism also is hyper-nationalism, often rigid obedience to tradition, and racial/ethnic obsession. These are also characteristics of right wing parties and leaders worldwide, from Republican ones such as Bush to their opposite counterparts in such countries as Iran or Afghanistan. That is why the religious right in America is often called the "American Taliban."

Excellent post.

Thank you. You are right - that is what we are seeing happening.

a reply to: Semicollegiate

Gary Johnson is a Libertarian

Indeed. I sit corrected.
Thanks.

a reply to: Quetzalcoatl14

Right wing totalitarianism is rule by special interests, corporations, and dictators and leaders owned or aligned with these interests.

More like, cooperation with, than rule by.

The state is the ruler in both cases left and right.

In Italy and Germany the political parties solicited support from whomever would join in. The socialistic government always had the guns and the short term control.

Why does the left make a big deal out of distinguish between totalitarians?

Because the left is totalitarian and tries to hide it.

originally posted by: raymundoko
a reply to: ownbestenemy

It's pretty common knowledge to anyone who has even slightly looked into illegal immigration:

Wiki

PEW studies on unauthorized immigrants estimates that the average household of 3.1 persons earns about $36,000 per year.

I must have missed the part where I said illegal immigrants make less than minimum wage on average. Here I had thought I said that it was possible to make less than minimum wage as an illegal immigrant. Oh wait, yep, that's what I said. So, was there a point to making your straw man argument? Or were you just trying to look like you knew something?

a reply to: Dfairlite

It's also possible to make less than minimum wage without being an illegal immigrant...

Waiters/Waitresses can make 2.85 an hour, work for 8 hours and make a measly 20-40 bucks in tips. Especially those in poorer areas. That's only one example.

There are also many examples of legal residents working under the table for cash and making less than minimum wage, but they do it to avoid state/federal taxes to bring in extra income to their family.

So again, on average, illegal immigrants make more than minimum wage and are usually 2-3x above the poverty line, all without paying state/federal income taxes. Of the estimated 20 million illegal immigrants in the USA, only about 6 million actually file taxes. The rest just pay sales tax.