Provided you can be civil and not have to resort to ad hominem.

Communism is an extreme left-wing ideology that no more defines the broad left-wing spectrum than does Fascism define the right-wing spectrum.

That would depend upon how the land was obtained in the first place. If they were initially obtained through force, coercion, or deception then I see nothing wrong with using the state's monopoly on force to re-appropriatre and redistribute them.

Since the left is generally both in favour of secularism and gender equality then such a school violates two central tenets of its ideology and is thus completely counter to it. Segregating minorities into ghettoes is also incompatible with left-wing ideology (and as a counterpoint to prove this I would point to the civil rights movement in the US in the 60s, a progressive movement, that successfully sought to empower and integrate the black minority). Therefore no, the example you give is not the kind of policy that is the general left-wing idea.

Forced abortions would run counter to the left-wing pillar that is personal liberty (which is why the "pro-choice" movement has alligned itself with the "left"). As to anarchists, they are excluded by definition because they favour no government while left-wing ideology concerns itself with how to govern.

Because personal and corporate liberty and well-being are not only not the same thing, but often at odds with each other. And concerning these two entities left-wing ideology attempts to put the person's liberty and well-being ahead of the corporations. The energy corporation, for instance, may favour complete deregulation and independence to maximize its profits, its well-being, while the individual who lives in the town that its coal plant is in has a vested interested, for their own well-being, of seeing certain restrictions placed on this corporation (for instance, restrictions governing emissions and what not).

Which actions specifically? Skybird had initially posted about his distaste of left-wing recipes and strategies, so in response I posted that par of its ideology which is generally agreed upon by all left-wing movements (by the way: note the plural; there are many left-wing ideologies and much disagreement among them, so it is even simplistic and inaccurate to try and lump them all together as though they moved in lockstep), and I invited him to list examples of where these "strategies and recipies" contribute to the problem being discussed in this thread. So far he hasn't bitten; perhaps because it is much easier to blame something as abstract as "the left" for all of societies problems than to discuss how specific actions lead to specific undesirable consequences.

The whole Left-Right spectrum is absurdly generic in today's world.

If Fascism is to the right of communism it is still to the left of liberalism, the central point (I HAD to say it) is, afterall, defining the center.

We can't and won't get past the generical. Had I specified Pol Pot, you would have said otherwise. It is important to define if re-appropriation and redistribution involves hanging a kulak every 100 meters.

But then there's also the end. What's the purpose of the redistribution? Is the goal collective farms or mini-individual lots? Again there's a difference between setting up a mini-farmer that will take care of his mini-land, grow his mini-crop and survive eating this mini-production, and a collective farm where people work through force, under coercion and deception by the state's monopoly on propaganda.

Exactly. One thing is speech and words, another thing is the reality. And it seems the reality is beyond the reach of that article. Because I dare you to call the heretics by the name, I assure you, I can bet the answer with you, you will hear that the heretic is you, or that you are a traitor. To give merit where merit due, we fall into the part of the article where it says the left-wing fights among each other, that couldn't be more real in a situation like this.

Like in the above, who is going to tell that to the Chinese Communist? "Herrro, Mr. Maoist, you now traitor, bad, bad you, no Mao, you no Mao anymore".

But this door can easily suit any wing, you can fit an entire airplane through it. It's not really exclusive to any ideology.

It's certainly less exhaustive. Who wants to sit here and list every distasteful action of the left, the lefts, the left-wing, "the left" in Europe?

If I know Skybird, I'll say he's not refering to any abstract "left" at all, but he probably has a very well defined list of politicians on his mind. Take the entire German Green Party for example, I don't know 100% of the affiliated members of this party, but I still don't know any Green who could escape my distaste. The same goes for the Nazi party, I don't know any exception in there. Put on the list the Dutch pedophile Party, the Italian Communist Party, a few more entire parties out there and then start listing individual politicians.

Being specific on this thread then, how could the left-wing contribute to such problem? By stuffing ideology where ideology is not welcome. Would the Italian Mafia have been defeated if the fight was guided by ideology? No, because of the politicians and other ideological figures involved, if the actions of the police and the state were guided by an ideology then the Mafia would've been instrumentalized instead by the stronger ideology against the opposing one, not that such a thing wasn't attempted. I suppose Skybird is refering to higher things though, those things above police and criminal work. I'm not venturing there, I don't want to climb the Everest.

Well, we're straying a bit off topic here, but at any rate Fascism is not to the left of Liberalism. As far as the political spectrum goes, fascism and communism, even though they superficially look similar, actually represent the opposite endpoints.

National Socialism, for instance, (as one example of a fascist movement, though not the only one to ever exist) had little to do with "socialism". One of the defining characterstics, economically, of the Nazi government was their incestuous relationship with corporate interests: if you wanted to do business in the Reich then you paid the appropriate bribes for the priveledge. In return officials granted you certain priveledges, such as a slave class of labour drawn among the camp inmates. Beyond that you could do what you pleased, and over the slave underclass the corporations had absolute power (in many cases, to the point of life or death).

At the other extreme, under Communist system there is no such thing as corporate power or influence because the state controls, completely, the mechanics of production and distribution of goods and services which under capitalist systems (including ones with fascism as their political system) is left to the market to varying extents.

Where these two ideologies are similar is in the lack of personal freedom that tends to accompany them, though this is because of the concentration of power and corruption that ensues and not due to any ideological basis.

The Nazi party was a fascist party, and therefore at the opposite end of the political spectrum (the extreme right-wing end of the political spectrum). I'm not familiar with the German Green party but the Italian Communist party would likely occupy a spot on the fringe end of the spectrum (the left side this time). As to the pedophile party in Holland, well I'm not really sure what point you could make with that since pedophillia is generally regarded as criminal and pathological, and is not part of the political spectrum anywhere else (or even in Holland where these people are properly dismissed as fringe whackjobs).

I suppose it comes down to this: are we talking mainstream left-wing politics or the fringe? Personally I'm more interested in the mainstream and assumed that was what Skybird referred to, since the fringe side of either ideology that you seem concerned with is neither terribly interesting nor particularly powerful (fascism having reached its peak of popularity back in the 1930s, and communism having largely collapsed almost everywhere since the fall of the USSR).

On topic I was thinking, when I posed my question to Skybird, of how our Conservative government had attacked the Liberals in their campaign as being soft on crime and proposed some new legislation of their own to remedy this "problem". I was therefore wondering if the left-wing governments in Europe had recently enacted legislation that could be considered as being soft on crime. Skybird doesn't seem interested in putting his money where his mouth is though. :D

ditto; the phrase people who like to be victims is an oxymoron
there is no such animal
-there are tho- attackers who like to believe
that their victims like to be victimised

plenty of those around...

By law in NZ we are not allowed to shoot anyone. If someone entered my home bent on stealing or killing me i am not allowed to shoot this person. I am allowed to beat them up but not allowed to kill them. Recently a father of 3 shot and killed a burglar who was standing in his lounge with a knife, so he got out his 22 rifle and shot him. He was dragged through the courts hounded by the media and made out to look like the crimmal while the dead victims family were all fussed over. Its total maddness some of the laws in our country, we are very lienent on criminals, another incident where a prisoner jumps the walls of one of our major prisons broke both his legs and claimed for ACC (accident compensation) and recieved $55000.:nope:
Although im yet to meet someone that would not shot a burglar. Oh well if i can't shoot the crim i do have a baseball bat and a nasty looking American Pitbull who is actually a real sook but they wont know that. :lol:

As a matter fo fact most people still prefer not to change their minds and start learn newu things as long as they do not sit at the receiving edge of a real big pain they have to suffer. All too often people do not see the flaws in their accting as long as the pain is not bigger than what they can bear.

You see disabling the threat doesn't necesserily mean to kill the threat. And I guess stealing something doesn't get you the death penalty either, so I'd say this was a) self-justice and b) excessive use of force.

My weapon of choice would be a taser-gun. Unless he gets a heart-attack, something you can't know and thus I think can not be held accountable for, I guess you'd be on the save side. He's unconscious, you call the police, he gets locked up, end of story.

^^
Plus you get the added bonus of watching your would be assilant soiling their underware. Might be a bit of a downer if there is leakage onto your carpet however... I think I'll stop there :eek:

I'd gladly take that risk.

I dunno bout you guys, but I quite like The Police....they made some good songs :up:

You are missing the pychological perspective in that they may not like being victims, but that they would rather die a victim than give up their victim status. Frued I beleive first coined this form of reasoning.

-S