Leftist Ideology Deconstructed in 1,000 Words

Facebook ^ | 08/22/2014 | walford

[DBeers]

I like your thoughts; good stuff.

[txhurl]

Good Stuff. Thank you.

[Sherman Logan]

Very interesting. In general, I agree.

However, I think it is a mistake to think that only liberty vs. tyranny is an issue on the political spectrum. There is also the issue of the goals of the government, not just the methods by which they pursue those goals.

For instance, a Tsar, a Lenin and a Hitler may be equally tyrannical, but that their tyrannies have very different purposes and goals.

[walford]

There is a reason I use Left rather than “liberal” — the Left is anything but liberal.

[txhurl]

Perfect analysis BTTT

[Diamond]

Calvinists saw the Enlightenment and the subsequent limited representative governments and the consequent Industrial Revolution as bordering on heretical; people who otherwise would be poor would be able to rise up through their own effort and ingenuity. In their eyes, this was thwarting Divine Will.

‘He who will not honor the memory and respect the influence of Calvin knows but little of the origin of American liberty.’
George Bancroft

‘If the average American citizen were asked, who was the founder of America, the true author of our great Republic, he might be puzzled to answer. We can imagine his amazement at hearing the answer given to this question by the famous German historian, Ranke, one of the profoundest scholars of modern times. Says Ranke, ‘John Calvin was the virtual founder of America.'
The Creed of Presbyterians, p. 119 by E. W. Smith,

Calvinism in America by Loraine Boettner

Cordially,

[Zeneta]

Bookmarked

[DBeers]

There is a reason I use Left rather than “liberal” — the Left is anything but liberal.

Agreed. They call themselves liberal because they are liars. Leftism is an inherently flawed ideology promoted with lies by liars. Leftists promise heaven but deliver hell because they must impose evil means upon individuals to pursue their utopian collectivist goals.

The Left wants to take society back to the dark ages where there was central authority that owned the land and provided work for the people in return for food and security; in other words Feudal Society.

[Zionist Conspirator]

Excellent post. The fact that the Left claims to believe in "materialism" even as its doctrine of inevitable progress-to-perfection requires some sort of supernatural oversight is down right creepy. The author should have pointed out that the Khmer Rouge constantly threatened that to resist them was to be ground down by the "wheel of history." How long before our liberals actually begin using that expression???

I disagree that they are opposed to patriotism. They are opposed to certain types of patriotism (American, Israeli, "western") but endorse the fanatical patriotism of Third World nationalists and of "socialist states." Even some white European movements evince this leftist version of patriotism, with publications with names like Red Patriot (among the Celts) and an actual "Patriotic Left" in Spain (Basques, Galicians, etc.).

And oh yes, that old lie that "the state is the people." Therefore what the state owns the people own, what the state wills the people will, and whoever opposes the state is an "enemy of the people." What about all those so-called "anarchists" on the Left, eh?

[Springfield Reformer]

Great article! Thanks for posting it.

[walford]

I appreciate the kind words and will consider your suggestions and might incorporate them in the Facebook version, which can be edited.

That version has been changed since the original posting here. You can see it at the link in the OP.

[ek_hornbeck]

For example, many conservatives claim fascism and Nazism are socialist and leftist. I don’t entirely agree, as I think they’re a weird mixture of leftism and (European variety) blood and soil right-wingery.

But you can’t have a theory where all leftism is Marxism and at the same time claim that fascism is also leftism, since fascism is inherently opposed to Marxism.

Fascism and Nazism grew out of reactionary Romanticism, which looked back to Medieval and ancient tribal societies, with their strict inherited "natural" hierarchies and order (as opposed to modern hierarchies based on wealth) as models. All of this had to be updated to work in a modern industrial nation-state, but it still could hardly be further from classical Marxist ideology. To say that Fascism is Marxist because neither have free markets or balance of power in a republican government is falling into the trap of saying "if you're not X, all ways of being not X are the same."

[Sherman Logan]

Thanks. I quite agree.

Get tired of the “liberty vs. tyranny” spectrum as if that’s the only way to compare governmental systems.

A similar thing is going on now. MArxism is tyrannical. ISIS is tyrannical. Therefore ISIS is Marxist.

[ek_hornbeck]

A similar thing is going on now. MArxism is tyrannical. ISIS is tyrannical. Therefore ISIS is Marxist.

It is absurd. I somehow doubt that ISIS would much appreciate the "religion is the opium of the masses" part very much.

[Sherman Logan]

Right. Horses and rhinos are not lions. Therefore horses and rhinos are really the same thing.