I am amazed at how many comments on this web-log prove at least the first part of the following proposition:
The left think the right are evil, and the right think the left are dumb.
People with such a narrow world view really should get out and about a bit more.
Jennifer Marohasy BSc PhD is a critical thinker with expertise in the scientific method.
No I think the right is both evil and dumb 🙂
How very right you are…
I was once a ‘card carrying’ lefty, firmly convinced that nothing but world wide international socialism was the answer to everything. Then it was all downhill from there, I read a bit more, Orwell; watched as the student union rigged things their way; failed miserably trying to argue with economics students; Nifty destroying the timber families under the homosexual bill smoke screen; ‘seduced’ by Keatingism; watching the self inflicted damage by wool grower market fiddling; Labor’s Victorian debacle; the ABC’s bucketing of Syd Shea; WA’s forest industry hit indirectly by the ‘mortgage brokers scandal’; the wanton destruction by Carr of natural resource based industries in NSW; the feral’s takeover of the ABC; Canberra 2003…
You’re perfectly right, I do think the left are dumb, just like I was all those years ago, thank goodness I did ‘get out a bit’…
Forester
Forester – The fact that you are a lefty convert makes sense to me. You do not rip my arguments apart with the same passion that committed right wing people seem to do. Also you do not seem to be far right wing.
I am the opposite. I started more on the right wing side and have only gravitated to the left as I realised the environmental problems that are facing our planet. Also I have an total abhorrence of racial stereotyping and violence. The lead up and invasion of Iraq really polarised my views to the left.
We’re not leaving till you right wingers say you’re sorry for upsetting us and write 100 times on the board “I will not use spin today”.
What is annoying though is that like blondes I think the right have more fun.
Dumb or stupid – that is the question.
Interesting comments – I was brought up in a very lefty family, sent to boarding school while at the same time studying J. Krishnamurti’s ideas.
I ended up thinking for myself, rather than parrot other’s thoughts.
What puzzles me is the intensive selectivity of the leftist view. Ender, your abhorrence of violence, didn’t that extend to the violence inside Iraq inflicted by Saddam ? The violence in Sudan, is that best dealt with by standing around telling everyone how horrendous it is, until the violence stops because everyone it was aimed at is dead ?
Oddly enough leftists seem to recognise that not doing something has effects just as doing something does with reference to the environment (or sometimes they do), but don’t with reference to politics. For example, if SH was still in charge in Iraq, would Iraq, Iraq’s people, and the world be better off ? That is, IMHO, a very doubtful proposition, though no doubt some people would be better off, SH for one.
Ed Snack – yes it did however at no time except when WMDs were not found was the objective regime change. Howard is on record as saying that we did not go into Iraq for regime change. So if the right has such a deep and meaningful concern for human rights then this should have been the first objective not one that was invented to cover the fact that the case for WMDs was weak and fictional.
You and the government of USA were quite OK with the violent regime of Saddam Hussein when it was on your side against Iran.
I am also concerned about the brutal regime in China and North Korea however I do not agree that a destructive invasion will do anything for the people of these countries. As the invasion of Iraq has done little for the common people. At least I am not hypocritical in expressing concern for the oil rich oppressed people of Iraq while ignoring the oil poor other repressed people who are also under the boot of brutal regimes.
I am powerless to help these people. The only thing I can do is try as best as I can to bring this to light in the hope that one day they can save themselves. As the USA has found in Iraq ‘those that live by the sword, die by the sword’
Violence only begets more violence.
And for you last point SH was a brutal dictator and the world is better off for his removal, that is self evident. However what is not right is the manner of his removal and the lies and deception when really it was about the neo-cons and their attempts to secure the USA’s energy supply. It was done with to few soldiers without UN support or approval. In short the end does not justify the means at least in previously civilised societies.
Abandoning the left for me was a cathartic experience – a huge weight was lifted. I could see in colour, no more black and white!
Now I life life simply and logically, with reason and without that great cloud of conspiracy over me.
I feel sorry for lefties, having to chase moon beams and clutching at straws. Always failing and always angry!
This diatribe! Left and right as petulant anchors, each emphatically adversarial.
I’ll cite you if you cite me, and we’ll cite the Other acrimoniously.
I see in black and white in the dusk, and vivid colour when the sun shines.
It may be worth noting that extremists of both left and right wings have similar personality disorders, and are often interchangeable. Some Nazi brownshirts were well known as previous communists. They were called “beefsteaks” – brown outside and pink inside. It would not surprise me if, after WW2, many former Nazis from East Germany reverted to rabid communism. Perhaps we should regard the political spectrum as a circle, rather than a straight line. Moderates are on one side of the circle, and extremists on the other. It doesn’t matter whether you travel left or right to become an extremist. In the environmental debate I find similarities between raving left-wing environmentalists, and their equally raving right-wing opponents. A pox on both their houses. They are bullies who want to dominate others. I think bullying has been rightly described as one of the most despicable human pursuits.
For a long time I have viewed both Nazism and Communism as variants of the “Left” – both are totalitarian collective regimes where the State owns capital and title and subjects are dependant on the State for their lives and livelihood.
Those on the “Right” support the freedom of the individual.
Who said this:
“As much individual responsibility as possible, as little government as possible, and as few rules as possible.”
BTW, I agree with the concept.
Are you an anarchist then Jennifer? Or would you put some conditions on that quote?
I agree with the quote too. But I would qualify it with the following points.
1. Without government, we have no laws or rules.
2. Without laws, we have anarchy.
3. Anarchy would be on the whole much worse than our current system.
4. Therefore there is a limit to how small government can be.
5. Laws/rules: they are there because as much as individual responsibility should be encouraged and is great, some people still just want to do what they please regardless of the adverse impacts for others. Laws regulate this, to discourage individual actions that have a net negative effect for society, and encourage actions that have a net good. Government (or some form of central decision making) is necessary. If not government, then what? The church? Mob rule? Violence?(stronger=better) Corporations?(more money = higher capacity to set the rules) Monarchy?
Rog: if you don’t like conspiracy theories then you must feel uncomfortable that many who would be described as ‘on the right’ subscribe to the un-proved conspiracy theory that thousands of the worlds climate scientists are a part of a group of politically corrupted individuals who have doctored up this make-believe theory of global warming because they get lots of money in research funding for doing so?
Steve,
Yes there is a place for government. I am still trying to work out how much, and what type of rules and regulations deliver best environmental outcomes.
They do do they Steve? – I’ll try to remember that one.
If you believe the conspiracy theory rog.
But you are happy now that you are no longer on the left and under that “great cloud of conspiracy”, so I’d imagine you wouldn’t subscribe to this conspiracy theory. I’d imagine that, not being partial to conspiracy, you would conservatively go with the mainstream position that human-induced global warming is a problem. Is that right?
I don’t know who said:
“As much individual responsibility as possible, as little government as possible, and as few rules as possible?”, but the National Party of Australia’s basic philosophy supports a private sector-led economy, with minimal government intervention.