Problems with the left, as described by a leftist

Greeting everybody,

I have always identified with mostly left politics. I think the ideals of the left are valuable, honorable and worth pursuing. I understand the opinions from other people, people from the right, the center and people who do not wish to be described by a left-right continuum. I understand their point of views and their worries. But I disagree on a lot of points.

That said, the left nowadays has gone to the crapper. I am ashamed to see how some of them behave and misrepresent the left's ideologies. Let's discuss some various things a bit more indepth.

1) The constant attacks on Trump. Now, as you might realize by now, I am certainly not a Trump supporter. But how the democrats treat him is silly.
You can criticize Trump for a lot of substantial things. Personally, I feel that not doing anything about climate change will be the worst thing he will have done in his presidency. But that is not what this thread is about. Instead of giving valid criticisms to Trump's policies, they go after him for the most stupid of all things. Honestly, who cares that he had an affair with a porn star and subsequently covered it up? Is that really something that you'd need to spin out in the media in such lengths? The man might be a horrible human being, but that is irrelevant to him being a good president or not.
Please focus on the issues that matter such as the growth of the national debt, the economic bubbles that are about to pop, the outrageous amount that students need to pay to get a mickey mouse degree. But no, they attack Trump for using nasty words, for not attending a word war I memorial service and for tweeting mean things. Please stop. Please focus on the real issues.

I read on this website a lot of times that the mainstream media is a tool by the left that is used to attack president Trump. It's not. The mainstream media is an enemy of the left as well as of Trump. They constantly bring up silly issues, and "breaking news bombshells" that turn out to be nothing.
The media draws our attention away from the real issues. Keeps us busy being outraged at what is going on in the white house, so that we ignore the awful things that are happening due to both democrats and republicans alike.

2) Silly political correctness. For me the left is all about personal freedom. The freedom to say what you want, to do what you want (as long as you don't harm other people). Respecting others opinions and values is an important factor in being a leftist.
But what do I see? Attacking a poor baker for not making a cake for a gay wedding? Since when is that something the left fights for? As far as I know, the left should be out there protecting the religious rights of the baker!
We got a great purge on social media of people of the far right, eg Alex Jones. Why is the left cheering for this? Are you supposed to tell me that the left agrees with a big corporation to silence individuals? We should be out there protesting against facebook's policies. But we don't because the people they banned were right wing?
Then we have people who block right-wing speakers from speaking at a university. Ok. That's just madness. Can't we fight these people with words instead? Show with good and solid argumentation that they are wrong? Blocking freedom of speech is not something any leftist should support.
Oh, and then there is the amazing stupidity of "don't assume a gender". Yes, a baby has a gender, for more than 99% of the people, the gender has been established by the chromosomes. Of course I fully support the right of gays or transgenders, but come on, can we stop the fake outrage when a subway announces "dear ladies and gentleman"?

3) Immigration. Open borders is stupid and dangerous. It is normal for a country to be able to control who comes in and who doesn't. We can't let in everybody since that would mean the economical system collapses. We should vet out dangerous criminals. The left should support strict immigration laws and border security, it is the rational choice.
I don't mean to say I'm for a border wall. I don't know if I like a border wall. I'm all ok with giving 5 billion to border security, and to give 5 billion to the most efficient ways to control the border. I'm just not sure whether the border wall is really the most efficient way to spend this money. It might be however, I haven't seen any unbiased results about this. Can we stop the partisan bickering and investigate if a border wall is necessary or not. Just because it's the most important campaign promise of Trump, doesn't mean that it's a bad idea and that we should oppose it.

4) Islam. Why are the current left politicians so silent about the dangers of this religion? They seem so hungry for the votes of the muslims, that they forget that the religion has some very disturbing views. Views on oppressing women and nonbelievers for example. Now I truly believe that there are plenty of "moderate muslims" who are genuinely nice people who don't mean any harm and who just want to live their lifes in peace and practice their religion how they see fit. All power to them. I will obviously defend their rights to religious and personal freedom. But a significant part of muslims are not so nice people and have views that go directly against ANY view that the left should defend. We need to call out radical islamism by name, and we need to fight its spread. We cannot accept breaching women's rights. We need to stop labeling anyone who has serious problems with Islam as a racist nazi. There ARE serious problems with Islam (and personally, I feel there are serious problems with any religion, just to lesser degree), and we need to be able to at least discuss and debate this.

Thanks for reading!

oh look, another in a multitude of threads knocking liberals, this should be constructive and help our nation solve a lot of problems

a reply to: ZornsLemma

Giving you a SnF for a well written piece.

Not sure if I agree with everything you said though.


The left is authoritarian. What you state "should" be the premise and foundation of the left is more libertarian, at least in my opinion.


Interesting side note; No argument or issue contains the term "freedom" any more. It's like a taboo subject.

Personal freedom, personal responsibility, individuality should be paramount.

In my humble opinion.

a reply to: ZornsLemma

right behaves the same way?
for sure

left. right. its all the same


maybe you missed all the threads attacking cortez.
omg she was in a music video she is a porn star

as an example


same # dude


funny thing is if the left gets called they only do it in response to the right
if the right gets called its just fair play cause the left did it first


so thats the reason

neither side wants to just stop the bull#

a reply to: toysforadults

ATS isn't going to save the world.

Hate to break it to you.

90% of the membership has no idea who the enemy really is.

a reply to: NthOther

That couldnt ve more obvious anymore

Anyway back to the central bankers crashing our econony again for "global stability"

a reply to: TinySickTears

Couldn't agree more

originally posted by: toysforadults
oh look, another in a multitude of threads knocking liberals, this should be constructive and help our nation solve a lot of problems

The OP is about actual liberals.

Not about Progressives, be they left OR right.

In fact, it lays out pretty well the differences between ACTUAL liberals and the ones that have taken the DNC over.

I had thought you knew the difference by now, since you seem to know everything else.

Globalists and authoritarians are the enemy of the people not political parties. Any policy that is anti-freedom is anti-American.

a reply to: NthOther

90% of the membership has no idea who the enemy really is.

I'm guessing you count yourself among the 10%? Perhaps maybe you're part of the very top of the woke mountain? Mount Woke is it?

a reply to: ZornsLemma

kunstler.com...#-nation/forecast-2019-ding-ding-margin-call-usa/

Culture

2018 was a low point for American culture, such as it is. The idiotic drivel emanating from the university campuses has infected the entire nation like a toxic shock disease. Most damaging, of course is the umbrella ideology of “multiculture” in a society that formerly thrived precisely because of the opposite of that: a common culture composed of ethics, customs, norms, and standards of decent behavior that people not insane could subscribe to. Remove the common culture of a nation and you will not have a nation — it’s that simple. Hence Americans are divided foolishly into battling identity groups who do not believe in a common culture and are doing everything possible to defeat it. They have no idea what E Pluribus Unum used to mean and they have no desire or intention to rediscover it. I return to the cardinal theme of The Long Emergency: that we can’t construct a coherent consensus about what is happening to us, and therefore we can’t make any coherent plans about what to do.

The financial hardships of 2019 provide an opportunity for some overdue mind-cleaning on these matters. There may even be a significant number of survivors among the brain-damaged former thinking classes who refuse to go along with the emperors-new-clothes ideas of recent years any longer. The main thing to understand about the so-called Progressive Left behind this toxic shock is that the whole crusade has been less about ideas of justice or fairness than the sheer joy of coercing others, of pushing people around and punishing them because its fun! The ideologies around that behavior are just window dressing.

a reply to: DBCowboy

I read that and went to libertarian as well.

Can we get clear definitions as to what is what?
Perhaps someone could publish a book where words are clearly defined?
Who am I kidding. No one in this day and age would read such a thing. . .

a reply to: projectvxn

Lots of people here used to be able to see it and are now sidetracked with Trumpism (either for or against, it's all insane). It's quite disturbing actually, how quickly people can be manipulated.

You, however, had never quite gotten there, unfortunately.

a reply to: NthOther

You, however, had never quite gotten there, unfortunately.

Put your ego away, you're in public.

The difference is I'm not playing the hero of my own legend.

I know there are problems but being "woke" doesn't solve # and all its managed to do for you is inflate your ego.

originally posted by: projectvxn

I know there are problems but being "woke" doesn't solve s# ...

Not sure who you're quoting there.

But somehow having a pissing contest with me is more productive?



Careful, you're on the verge of looking like an idiot.

Wait for it.

"You already look like one!"

a reply to: NthOther

Careful, you're on the verge of looking like an idiot.

Says the guy who thinks himself better than 90% of ATS membership. Like there's this knowledge you have that no one else but a small elite knows, and of course, you're part of it, yes?

a reply to: ZornsLemma
Pal, I usually identify with the right these days, but I’d like to have a drink with you. Perhaps your the smartest liberal I’ve heard from in a while.

a reply to: DBCowboy

The left is authoritarian. What you state "should" be the premise and foundation of the left is more libertarian, at least in my opinion.

Come on DC, it's not the left alone that can be authoritarian. It is anyone who is in power, It is the power to impose your will on others that creates authoritarianism. Neither the left or the right can wash their hands of this malady. Power ends up making psychopaths, or at least it is psycopaths that seek it.

So yeah, some on the left hold a vision that they want to impose on society. Granted and first grade material. But ignoring the historical truth that conservatives who traditionally want to hold society in stasis, keep it the same as before because it just worked out so well for those who were successful in that system even thought it was limited to those who fit into the catagories of existence that it allowed for, use authoritarian powers as well is denial.

Interesting side note; No argument or issue contains the term "freedom" any more. It's like a taboo subject.

Personal freedom, personal responsibility, individuality should be paramount.

And here is the quote from OP's point two.

"2) For me the left is all about personal freedom. The freedom to say what you want, to do what you want (as long as you don't harm other people). Respecting others opinions and values is an important factor in being a leftist. ''

You have at times here claimed to have been a liberal, and it that is the case then you know that that above statement is true though you frequently claim otherwise like in your statement above that the left is authoritarian.

originally posted by: TerryMcGuire
a reply to: DBCowboy

The left is authoritarian. What you state "should" be the premise and foundation of the left is more libertarian, at least in my opinion.

Come on DC, it's not the left alone that can be authoritarian. It is anyone who is in power, It is the power to impose your will on others that creates authoritarianism. Neither the left or the right can wash their hands of this malady. Power ends up making psychopaths, or at least it is psycopaths that seek it.

So yeah, some on the left hold a vision that they want to impose on society. Granted and first grade material. But ignoring the historical truth that conservatives who traditionally want to hold society in stasis, keep it the same as before because it just worked out so well for those who were successful in that system even thought it was limited to those who fit into the catagories of existence that it allowed for, use authoritarian powers as well is denial.

Interesting side note; No argument or issue contains the term "freedom" any more. It's like a taboo subject.

Personal freedom, personal responsibility, individuality should be paramount.

And here is the quote from OP's point two.

"2) For me the left is all about personal freedom. The freedom to say what you want, to do what you want (as long as you don't harm other people). Respecting others opinions and values is an important factor in being a leftist. ''

You have at times here claimed to have been a liberal, and it that is the case then you know that that above statement is true though you frequently claim otherwise like in your statement above that the left is authoritarian.

Anyone can be authoritarian. Who is showing that facet these days?

Do conservatives want to hold "society in stasis?" Or do they want change to be gradual so that all can accept it?


The current "left" as the OP points out is not "all about personal freedom. The freedom to say what you want, to do what you want (as long as you don't harm other people)."
You have effectively lost your own argument in your own post.