Three Lefts Make a Right, and Three Rights Make a Left

And I thanked you for proving my point, but I’ll say it again: Thanks!

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"This is that human freedom, which all boast that they possess, and which consists solely in the fact, that men are conscious of their own desire, but are ignorant of the causes whereby that desire has been determined." -Baruch Spinoza

Which group was that? If we are talking about mass shootings here (specifically, any shooting with four or more victims, which is the official requirement to qualify as such), I think you will find the crimes are committed by a fairly diverse spectrum of people.

If, however, we are talking about which shootings draw the most spectacle and the most controversy, I think when we drill down, we will find a massive disparity in how the larger media corporations handle such crimes.

Here is a quick snapshot of all of the people who qualify as a perp under the above criteria:



I would ask that you please elaborate on exactly which group you meant, as it is tough to easily draw a conclusion in that regard using this photo set.

For the record, I only see one group - a group of psychopaths.

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But which is it to you? If you believe these individuals were part of a group, you must certainly believe a Muslim committing mass murder in the name of God is as well. In that case, you must have been for Trump's temporary travel ban with the list of countries that Obama put together. At least, I guess, Trump didn't bomb those countries like Obama did. Oh I'm sorry, was that supposed to be another example of Trump's racism?

Dream on my friend

You just don’t like it when I win.

I bet you have more in common with Trump than you realize

I’m sorry but I don’t dignify FAKE posts with an @ reply.

what people that aren’t from america actually think about america,
i cry laughing when a american says he lives in the greatest country in the world,
they're preventing people from getting in, they might start thinking about when they get out

There's plenty of problems, but the idea that someone can get an accurate snapshot from the stories they hear from overseas--which are by definition going to be the worst--is kinda absurd.

You wouldn't know from the above, for example, that gun violence has been dropping for decades. Because you can't tell that sort of thing in a nation of hundreds of millions of people by the anecdotal evidence of whatever politically charged stories happen to reach you halfway around the world.

If it wasn't for America saving Europe's ass in WWII, you'd be under Nazi control. We sacrificed millions of our young men in both World Wars so that you have the freedom today to post your silly anti-American memes...think about that.

I mean, technically it's possible for America to do great things for a very long time and then become a bad (or just mediocre) place to live. There's no inherent contradiction there.

There's a pretty clear contradiction with a lot of the data, however, so it's incumbent on someone who doesn't live here to actually dig into the numbers a little, rather than make some blithe assessment of a place they don't live based on whatever stray news stories they happen to notice.

Is this there a difference between left and right? Trump is such a small part of much bigger problem.

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We are both the source of the problem and the solution, yet we do not see ourselves in this light...

Yeah. Obama was no liberal.. By his own admission, he's a Republican. I remember him saying "I believe marriage is between a man and a woman" and then 5 seconds after the conservative Supreme Court made it alright for gays to get married, The White House was covered with rainbow colors. Bailed out Wall Street, fracked, drilled in the arctic, did nothing liberal, not even his right-winged health plan.

Being anti-Trump is not even close to "left".. There is no left-wing in the US.. All those candidates are echoing exactly what Bernie is saying, but they don't believe it. "20 minute" progressives. Even he is centre-left, and he's the most "extreme", so much a Fox audience supported him. Of course, people might say one thing to show how self-reliant they are, while voting another way in the booth. The media has never been worse, and neither have our "leaders" and the people race to the bottom, lowering the standards for any kind of human decency.

I've seen both of these parties completely trade on issues. Republicans used to hate tariffs, and now they hate them. Free trade to fair trade. So of course, the other side has to play the opposite, which is customary, because their own party won't call out their own party unless its expedient to them somehow. Both parties spend endless money on endless wars, don't seem to care about the deficit. Of course, we only hear "How are we gonna pay for that?" when it comes to helping the public.

I think too many don't know a damn thing about politics, and only know what they think they are supposed to say. When I hear people discuss politics, its a cult of personality, not politics. Its a sports match, with everyone thinking the refs are biased.

Remember when Nixon said, "The last thing I'll ever do is recognized Red China?" -- it was! Bill Clinton signed NAFTA into law, deregulated Wall Street, repealing Glass-Steagull. Obama tried to get the TPP passed (Hillary, too), while the Democrats stood idly until Bernie was against it. If only Trump was against it, then it wouldn't have been good enough. Ralph Nader himself said it would be NAFTA on steroids... I remember him saying "I'm a different kind of Democrat" - yeah, a Republican!


P.S. - "The Russians are coming!" (another switch-a-roo, just like the support for the CIA, FBI, NSA and other alphabet lettered gestapo groups).. I never believed in that horse***** investigation. They're all vying for jobs at Goldman Sachs when they're out of office, or a book deal.

We also bombed the everliving **** out of their civilian population, so it's not like we rode in on white horses carting Hersey's chocolate. Just sayin'

Huh? We specifically didn't do this. We could've bombed like mad from afar and wrecked Europe, but we took the far more costly option (in terms of lives and wealth) of invading and rooting the problem out.

At least 1 million civilians dead from our strategic bombing campaign.

We primarily targeted major industrial cities, and people work and live in cities.

I’m totally on the go freedom side. But in hindsight we can acknowledge that civilians paid a high price psychologically from seemingly endless bombing campaigns.

Thanks for your last post Matt. It was an interesting read and I can tell you put a lot of thought into it.

I'm curious about your above quote from your post. My question is: What issues would a left wing politician support? and be against? What would their stance be on the current issues that were discussed at the Democratic debates: gun control, immigration, climate change, minimum wages, global trade, health care, abortion rights, civil rights, nuclear proliferation and anything else they talked about.

...out of 40 million total civilian casualties. Scale matters, given the size of the conflict.

I don't know where the "primarily" is coming from. Regardless, as I said before: we lost many, many American lives, and untold amount of money, to specifically avoid bombing Europe mindlessly. We could've done it a lot more and saved those lives, and that money, but we didn't. We paid a higher price to avoid exactly that. But it's still war.

Of course. It was a World War, after all. But in all things, and war in particular, choices have to be judged based on their alternatives.

1 million is still 1 million. I fail to see why scale matters. Primarily because we didn’t actively bomb the countryside except for a few small campaigns. The point remains that we maintained a sustained bombing effort on the pockets of city civilians. This number might have been small but it doesn’t change the fact that we bombed the crap out of civilians.

The first thing I'd mention is the priorities. Anti-war would be at the top of my list. Health care for all. Ending homelessness would be near the top, and I could argue for the other side, "You don't want those bums lowering your property costs". For example, if we guarantee housing for all (as well as the basics I mentioned along with education), we could be do away with a minimum wage. Maybe I'm discussing left-winged populism mixed with my ideas, but I might be considerate a moderate over immigration. There's 330 million people in the US for one, but I've read enough to believe that the wages of the working-class would remain stagnant. Yes, I've read stats that illegal immigrants commit less crime, but there's no record of those who do commit crime. If any one of us breaks the law, we get into trouble. Speaking of which, this for-profit prison system must end (Kamala)..


I also disagree with a few candidates and I'd give even rich people the same benefits. Because the minute someone decides to cut education for all, the rich would be fine anyway. I also think it sets a good example that we want educated people, because no man is an island. K-12 is covered in the US, what's so radical about K-16? Americans will never be able to compete in this global world when all the 1st world countries offer higher education (along with some 2nd world countries). They'd pay higher taxes, and we'd close so many loopholes. I'd also prefer to bail out the public, as opposed to corporate bail-outs.



I hate the idea of nuclear weapons, but those aren't kitchen table issues, and I don't think the world wants to blow it all up - there's no beneficiaries. I support Civil Rights, but I don't support affirmative action anymore. I think it only creates resentment, especially among minority groups within the working-class.



I was very anti-gun living in European countries, Australia, etc., but there are more guns than Americans, and so if one has the idea that everyone is armed, I can see why some would buy a gun, despite not wanting to. I know these mass shootings are horrible, but I wouldn't want some Patriot-Act lite. Especially when they blame mental illness and video games, ruining it for everyone else. As well as a loss of privacy.


When it comes to climate change, I'm mostly interested in clean water and air. I still think people need food before we tackle something like climate change, which would need a lot of cooperation and change, but I think using solar, hydro, windmills would be good, and then use other forms to make up "when the wind doesn't blow" like Trump likes to say. Speaking of Trump, he signed Criminal Justice reform, where Clinton did the opposite with Biden's help, as well as cutting welfare for so many to give that money (small amount) compared to helping big business.

I'm pro-abortion, and I think it shouldn't be an issue. I believe people have a right to their body. Every decision will have its consequences, and they'll have to deal with it.


I was pissed to hear Bill Maher (who I liked in the late 90s) but he's a phony. He actually wished for America to have a recession. "Its worth it", he said, thinking it would help someone beat Trump. Again, out of touch. Maybe HE can afford it, but the working people who are struggling is going to ditch him because of their own personal circumstances.


Unfortunately, so much talk is over issues that affect 1%, not that they aren't important, but when people are dying due to lack of health care, I'll stick with that first. I got so tired of all this toilet talk, but no worries, I'll install 7 toilets in my 500 sq. foot rented house. They KNOW you can't legislate kindness and understanding, so they keep throwing racism and identity politics in general to win over demographics, while doing nothing for them in reality.

I'm also big on Free Speech, and really can't stand all these anti-war voices being shut down, or any dissenting voices on the right. For many reasons. I want to try and understand them, see how their mind works, but its not about me. When you ban someone on Google/YouTube, Facebook, etc., there is no other public square. Millions of people won't even have a chance to judge. You can't have freedom and expect perfection. I also think as a result of all these bans and domain closures, millions of people who identify with the El Paso shooter's philosophy will say "See, they are shutting us down", which might backfire. I'm not as big on isms as I am with results. I don't like group think, and I think we have to do what is best for ourselves and those around us. What worked 50 years ago cannot work today because we lived in a different society. I've heard of automation dividends, and it sounds like a good idea. I also think as a result of this, people would cooperate, maybe have more respect for their fellow man, as blaming each other for the social ills. I also can't stand when partisans cheer certain outcomes because it makes "the other guy" look bad, when in fact, we ALL live in this country, and "bad things" affect everyone.