UK Politics Thread

[Montmorency]

Hmmm.

Spread of Christianity, end of slavery, Indian Independence, Civil Rights Movement - all accomplished their goals largely through compassionate argument, not violence. None of these examples are perfect, of course, but then humans are hardly perfect.

Spread of Christianity, like the spread of Islam, was imposed on subject populations from the top down by converted local grandees and princes, when it wasn't spread by the sword. The case for 20th-21st century conversion processes is a little better, but it's funded by big money (and, incidentally, many far-right organizations), so appealing to "compassionate argument" sounds euphemistic.

Indian independence and the American civil rights movement were professedly non-violent, not civil. If you examine their conduct, you would absolutely recognize them as uncivil - many contemporaries did. You make a big mistake invoking these.

End of slavery especially, that involved bloody war and state coercion. Before that it involved vociferous public declamation, heated debate, and mob politics.

Your examples contradict your position like 90% of the way.

A few posts back you implied I would support a Fascist regime if it were sufficiently "Urbane", now you say "the Right" must be "eradicated irrevocably". Who, exactly is the totalitarian, here?

I will not give up my civility, my compassion, my belief in human goodness or my God - you'll have to kill me. How many skulls will you need to build your promised land, I wonder? Finally, I will make this point - there is no sacred war - all human conflict is evil - under all circumstances. Sometimes we do evil things to avert greater evils but we should not kid ourselves. The road to Hell has ever been paved with good intentions.

You've got it all wrong, I'm not the one offering revolution - the Right are. They're the ones bringing the knife to our throats. All most on the Left ever wanted was a bit more social spending and responsibility, but the Right have recklessly escalated toward dissolving liberal democracy outright. What's worse, they've been working at it for generations, ever since social democracy's ascent, for some even since 1789 or 1517. They hate us for our freedoms pretty much. As I am not a Christian, I don't offer the other cheek. Well, I personally would go meekly, but that doesn't mean others should.

This is a mere evaluation of the forces acting on our world. Civilizational crisis, if not collapse, is overdetermined; a new equilibrium will come to replace the world we have known. The Right is presently on the attack - one sick fuck has referred to it as a "Warsaw ghetto uprising" - and it's bound to get much much worse before it gets better. I say they must be eradicated because there is no reason to believe they will ever stop erupting as a permanent fifth column against the species. Your demographic will play a critical role, it's just a certainty. The Left can't build enough democratic power on its own. If I may allude to American context, it's very unlikely that either socialism or liberalism can (peacefully) defeat the Ahmaris and Trumps without the compliance and preferably allegiance of the Frenchs.

This is about much more than elections mind you. I can only hope you will come to see things more clearly as the world environment deteriorates.

At least now I know why disdain good manners, you consider them evil.

How sad.

No, I think evil people use them as a convenient facade that they don't even respect themselves, and that those who lecture on civility are all too often seeking to impose their advantage through subordination of perceived inferiors. For my part I maintain civility contextually as I judge proper. I perceive my own standards on the Org as generally appropriate, for example, and try to accommodate individual interlocutors' standards as needed.

[Philippus Flavius Homovallumus]

Spread of Christianity, like the spread of Islam, was imposed on subject populations from the top down by converted local grandees and princes, when it wasn't spread by the sword. The case for 20th-21st century conversion processes is a little better, but it's funded by big money (and, incidentally, many far-right organizations), so appealing to "compassionate argument" sounds euphemistic.

Indian independence and the American civil rights movement were professedly non-violent, not civil. If you examine their conduct, you would absolutely recognize them as uncivil - many contemporaries did. You make a big mistake invoking these.

End of slavery especially, that involved bloody war and state coercion. Before that it involved vociferous public declamation, heated debate, and mob politics.

Your examples contradict your position like 90% of the way.

No, this is faulty historiography. By the time Constantine I become Emperor and gave the Church his official support Christianity was probably already the largest religion in the Empire, despite centuries of persecution. Only in England, Saxony and the New World was Christianity primarily a "top down" affair. The end of slavery only involved bloody war in the US. In the UK it was ended via a court case which declared the institution "repugnant" and in our Colonies it was finally banned by Parliament after a century of compassionate argument primarily made by non-conformist Christians.

India and the wider Civil Rights movement achieved their ultimate goals via civil disobedience thereby demonstrating to contemporaries that they were not animals, but fellow humans worthy of civil rights.

You've got it all wrong, I'm not the one offering revolution - the Right are. They're the ones bringing the knife to our throats. All most on the Left ever wanted was a bit more social spending and responsibility, but the Right have recklessly escalated toward dissolving liberal democracy outright. What's worse, they've been working at it for generations, ever since social democracy's ascent, for some even since 1789 or 1517. They hate us for our freedoms pretty much. As I am not a Christian, I don't offer the other cheek. Well, I personally would go meekly, but that doesn't mean others should.

This is a Marxist reading of history - you cannot read back the motivations of a group prior to that group's existence. The American "Upper Class" rose out of the Middle Class after having driven out the Upper Class, to which they have no real relation. In particular, the call for low taxes and the insistence that the poor do not need social welfare is a Middle Class view. In any case, the concepts of "right and left" originate in the 18th Century and your concept of the "Left" emerged only in the 19th with the new underclass in the Industrialised cities.

This is a mere evaluation of the forces acting on our world. Civilizational crisis, if not collapse, is overdetermined; a new equilibrium will come to replace the world we have known. The Right is presently on the attack - one sick fuck has referred to it as a "Warsaw ghetto uprising" - and it's bound to get much much worse before it gets better. I say they must be eradicated because there is no reason to believe they will ever stop erupting as a permanent fifth column against the species. Your demographic will play a critical role, it's just a certainty. The Left can't build enough democratic power on its own. If I may allude to American context, it's very unlikely that either socialism or liberalism can (peacefully) defeat the Ahmaris and Trumps without the compliance and preferably allegiance of the Frenchs.

This is about much more than elections mind you. I can only hope you will come to see things more clearly as the world environment deteriorates.

See what more clearly? The need to abandon my principles? It sounds to me like you want to use the climate crisis as a catalyst for revolution, not the other way around.

No, I think evil people use them as a convenient facade that they don't even respect themselves, and that those who lecture on civility are all too often seeking to impose their advantage through subordination of perceived inferiors. For my part I maintain civility contextually as I judge proper. I perceive my own standards on the Org as generally appropriate, for example, and try to accommodate individual interlocutors' standards as needed.

Whether you consider them evil or a tool of evil is far less relevant than the fact you don't see them as a force for good.

At this point I feel it necessary to refer to a pertinent personal example:

When you contacted me via PM and asked for my views on several topics I gave of my time and answered your questions. When I politely asked you to desist as the conversation was becoming unpleasant you insisted on sending me another wall of text. Was the intention at that point to provoke me into swearing at you and permanently lowering my opinion of you, or was that ultimately not to your advantage? Certainly, I am now disinclined to by sympathetic to your views on a given topic.

[Montmorency]

I did not say there is no progress, I said that progress is not linear, and your perception of it as such may simply be a lack of a broad enough historical context.

I didn't say it was linear.

As I have been saying for years:

"Rome is falling - but then Rome is always falling."

Uh, OK, but I was leaving a historical note that I think may be implicated in numerous threads, so that it's here for reference. About the context of the idea of progress. That, for example, it was partly popularized in the United States out of postmillenial Christian social reformist movements as far back as the Second Great Awakening. The modernist era was a different time, and WW2 killed or damaged a lot of ideas about utopia and progress.

We're living in a postmodern era, ideologies have adapted to their milieu, so sometimes there's a little confusion when comparing ideologies in broad terms across a long period.

What a wonderful insult.

It's not an insult; I wasn't joking.

However, just because I consider all violence evil does not mean I will not support violence when necessary. One can recognise the evils the Allies committed during World War II such as the bombing of Dresden and the Nuclear bombs but that does not mean they were not necessary under the circumstances.

Those are separate debates to have.

In a perfect world we would have convinced Hitler not to massacre 6 million Jews, but we do not live in a perfect world.

I hope I'm not being gauche when I point out that Hitler did more than kill 6 million Jews, and that there were more Germans than just Hitler.

Therefore, if you choose to criticise me on these point I suggest you do so only with the upmost seriousness.

With all due respect, you have your specialization. I can't recall a time when I would have presumed to debate historical theology with you.

No, this is faulty historiography. By the time Constantine I become Emperor and gave the Church his official support Christianity was probably already the largest religion in the Empire, despite centuries of persecution. Only in England, Saxony and the New World was Christianity primarily a "top down" affair.

What was my assertion? The historical spread of Christianity was largely top-down and coercive. Your counterpoint is the Christianization of the Roman Empire, but of course without official support it took multiple centuries to maybe achieve majority status, and after it did gain official support it was absolutely coercive and top-down. Emperors and cardinals didn't offer compassionate argument, or at any rate this wasn't their operating model. Following the Roman period you neglect the millennium of Christian consolidation in Europe, which again was characterized by coercion and the conversion of elites. Thereafter European colonists spread Christianity throughout the world. I hope I don't need to show you that this was, once again, coercive and top-down. Would you really deny any of this?

The end of slavery only involved bloody war in the US. In the UK it was ended via a court case which declared the institution "repugnant" and in our Colonies it was finally banned by Parliament after a century of compassionate argument primarily made by non-conformist Christians.

If you'll examine the contents of the public debate on slavery, you would see it was quite vehement to put it mildly. Especially on the part of the working class, who were relatively good about recognizing their class interests with respect to slave economies. A court ruling is not compassionate argument. Royal Navy squadrons are not compassionate argument.

India and the wider Civil Rights movement achieved their ultimate goals via civil disobedience thereby demonstrating to contemporaries that they were not animals, but fellow humans worthy of civil rights.

The civil rights movement did not proceed by compassionate argument, it relied on the force of direct action. Compassionate argument may have been involved on an interpersonal basis, as always, in organizing black people and white allies against the apartheid state, but when it came to marching in the streets they weren't there to persuade by speech, nor were their opponents. Same goes with India. Gandhi didn't want to persuade the British of Indian dignity, he wanted to inflict economic pain and political discomfort on the British ruling class.

And, this may be hard for you to hear, but the peaceful civil disobedience movements were girded by the threat of mass violence against the authorities. In India, the imperial government preferred to deal with the non-violent movement rather than risk enflaming armed resistance. Likewise in the American city halls, the Congress and White House, white politicians preferred to seek accommodations with the civil rights movement not because they often believed in the righteousness of its cause, or because they felt voters would reward them, but because they flinched at the prospect of mobs of rioting blacks burning down the cities. Yes indeed, peaceful resistance was not the only game in town. These are historical facts. My own suspicion is that, without a big stick, speaking loudly is more often than not liable to get you killed and little more. A "good cop, bad cop" analogy comes to mind.

So yeah, you remain basically wrong in no small way.

This is a Marxist reading of history - you cannot read back the motivations of a group prior to that group's existence.

Hoo boy. Are you sure you've read Marx? A lot of conservatives claim to have read Marx, but demonstrate little evidence of reading. What I wrote has nothing to do with Marx in fact, and I'm not sure how you drew the connection. What do you mean by "read back the motivations of a group" and what do you mean by "prior to that group's existence?"

The American "Upper Class" rose out of the Middle Class after having driven out the Upper Class, to which they have no real relation. In particular, the call for low taxes and the insistence that the poor do not need social welfare is a Middle Class view. In any case, the concepts of "right and left" originate in the 18th Century and your concept of the "Left" emerged only in the 19th with the new underclass in the Industrialised cities.

W-what???

???

I listed a few observations of political and cultural features of the contemporary Right informed by prolonged, broad and direct (admittedly US-centric) experience bolstered by reading 20th century history, and I don't know what it is you think you're talking about here.

See what more clearly? The need to abandon my principles? It sounds to me like you want to use the climate crisis as a catalyst for revolution, not the other way around.

Catalyst for revolution? There is a revolution at hand whether you like it or not. I never asked for one, I'm no man for trying times.

Our economic, social, and political orders consistently fail to respond to the converging existential catastrophes of our time. Revanchist authoritarianism and fascism sweep the planet as democratic consciousness even among the allegedly "developed" countries takes two steps back for every step forward, with relatively few loci of resilience. Either we go under as a species, or we transition to a ruined and fragmented world dominated by fascists, ancaps and warlords in governmental form. Or - and stay with me here Phil - we organize for cooperative democracy on an unprecedented level and redistribute the world's bounty in an equitable and sustainable way. Those are the possibilities, and all of them are revolutionary from the contemporary perspective. Hence the expression "socialism or barbarism." What I'd like you to recognize sooner rather than later is that whatever you think of one, it's always that or the other.

Would you agree that if one's principles can't answer to the situation at hand, then those principles are or have become worthless and and one ought to discover new ones? At a minimum maintain an awareness that your principles MIGHT not measure up to what is required.

Whether you consider them evil or a tool of evil is far less relevant than the fact you don't see them as a force for good.

At this point I feel it necessary to refer to a pertinent personal example:

When you contacted me via PM and asked for my views on several topics I gave of my time and answered your questions. When I politely asked you to desist as the conversation was becoming unpleasant you insisted on sending me another wall of text. Was the intention at that point to provoke me into swearing at you and permanently lowering my opinion of you, or was that ultimately not to your advantage? Certainly, I am now disinclined to by sympathetic to your views on a given topic.

Christ's sake Phil, I know you are a very finicky person but that wall was not for you to respond to (should you want to that's a different story), it was a clarification for you to reflect on at the time and disposition of your choosing. A record of my thoughts so that I wouldn't have to recreate them piecemeal in the future. Would it have helped to relay it at a later date? Never to express what I needed you to recognize would have been intolerable because it would have signified a wasted outpouring of breath. For someone so adamant that others should strive to understand your point of view it stung that you refused to acknowledge my explicit attempt to explain to you how I was doing just that. I have a point of view too.

I imagined that you would digest it at your own discretion and perhaps your updated awareness would manifest in future interactions, but to discover that up to now your only takeaway has been as an opportunity to self-righteously shit all over my sincere outpouring - disappoints me.


###

As an example of right wing perniciousness, for all my life and with increasing intensity elements of the Right, diplomatically described as just beneath the mainstream (with tens of millions of users or readers or viewers or listeners), have demanded, threatened, or predicted civil war against their "illegitimate" liberal enemy. You can find hundreds of examples of reactionary bloodlust and apocalyptic mania if you want to get down and dirty with Google. I was literally driven to tears over one example from the Federalist, which I posted about here a year ago.

So far so good and normal (?).

Trump retweeted one such [EDIT: Important to note this was a Fox News guest] in connection to the possibility of his removal from office, after he had already invoked investigating a ranking Democratic Congressman for treason. The mainstay of all robust republican government being of course the impunity of the executive to plunder and to persecute...

Then the Twitter account of one of the largest and most notorious right-wing militia organizations, the Oath Keepers, which has already threatened civil war directly to Democratic politicians such as California's governor and has been vocally obsessed with civil war since at least the Obama years, responded with the following:

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

This whole thread is important to read. The term “civil war” is increasingly on people’s tongue. And not just “cold civil war” - full-blown “hot” civil war. Fact is patriots consider the left to be domestic enemies of the Constitution bent on the destruction of the Republic...

And we consider all that they are doing to impeach the President to be be illegitimate pretexts to simply undo the 2016 election results that they don’t like. They expected to win and see Trump as an interloper and impediment to their “rightful” power. @StewartRhodesOK

Did you know that before 1869 locomotives had no general brakes and each car had to be individually levered to a halt? Trains used to be the #1 cause of violent death before the automobile, you know! But the thing about slow-moving train wrecks is that you can see them coming. Many saw this one coming since 2016.

I never heard of this band before.

[Philippus Flavius Homovallumus]

You're doing that thing again where you write four times as much as your interlocutor.

I didn't say it was linear.

The point was originally meant for Beskar in any case. Despite which, you seem to subscribe to the same concept of progress and human improvement - I do not.

Uh, OK, but I was leaving a historical note that I think may be implicated in numerous threads, so that it's here for reference. About the context of the idea of progress. That, for example, it was partly popularized in the United States out of postmillenial Christian social reformist movements as far back as the Second Great Awakening. The modernist era was a different time, and WW2 killed or damaged a lot of ideas about utopia and progress.

We're living in a postmodern era, ideologies have adapted to their milieu, so sometimes there's a little confusion when comparing ideologies in broad terms across a long period.

Well, I'm not a post-modernist. Besides, my historical note is pithier.

It's not an insult; I wasn't joking.

If you weren't joking it's definitely an insult. I disdain any connection to someone else's conception of a political ideology or stance.

Those are separate debates to have.

The Fall of Man isn't a concept you are going to be able to debunk to anyone's satisfaction but your own.

I hope I'm not being gauche when I point out that Hitler did more than kill 6 million Jews, and that there were more Germans than just Hitler.

I rather think you are because you should know my point was about the individual - no the collective. I picked Hitler because everyone hates Hitler.

With all due respect, you have your specialization. I can't recall a time when I would have presumed to debate historical theology with you.

My specialisation is not theology, and you presume to lecture me on my reading of historical processes.

What was my assertion? The historical spread of Christianity was largely top-down and coercive. Your counterpoint is the Christianization of the Roman Empire, but of course without official support it took multiple centuries to maybe achieve majority status, and after it did gain official support it was absolutely coercive and top-down. Emperors and cardinals didn't offer compassionate argument, or at any rate this wasn't their operating model. Following the Roman period you neglect the millennium of Christian consolidation in Europe, which again was characterized by coercion and the conversion of elites. Thereafter European colonists spread Christianity throughout the world. I hope I don't need to show you that this was, once again, coercive and top-down. Would you really deny any of this?

I'd deny this narrative is anything other than out of date as a reading of history. Christianity was spread principally by women and slaves before it was adopted by Constantine I, he was converted by his sister and his secretary - who was a slave as I recall. It was not until Theodosius the Great in the 370's that Nicene Christianity became the official Imperial Church as we call it. Even so, Pagans continued to enjoy full rights as citizens and private religious freedom until Justinian explicitly linked Christianity with citizenship (thereby disenfranchising Jews too).

Meanwhile, in the West the Franks and Visigoths gradually abandoned the Arian Christianity of forefathers for the Nicene Christianity of their subjects - bottom up. Only in England did the elite convert first, followed by their subjects - even there the women tended to convert first which is still effectively "bottom up".

If you want real "coercion" you need to go as far forward as Charlemagne, after the Arab Conquests. From then onward Christianity does not really "spread" until the Renaissance - excepting the Baltic Crusades. That is not to say that after Charlemagne there was not increasing persecution of non-conformists like Cathars and later Waldensians and Lollards. The Crusades in the Middle East aren't really relevant here, btw, because there's little evidence of the Crusader States making any effort to enforce religious conformity.

If you'll examine the contents of the public debate on slavery, you would see it was quite vehement to put it mildly. Especially on the part of the working class, who were relatively good about recognizing their class interests with respect to slave economies. A court ruling is not compassionate argument. Royal Navy squadrons are not compassionate argument.

Do you know to which court ruling I refer?

The Royal Navy was not used to "end slavery" so much as it was used to prevent slave trading within British territories after we had banned it.

The civil rights movement did not proceed by compassionate argument, it relied on the force of direct action. Compassionate argument may have been involved on an interpersonal basis, as always, in organizing black people and white allies against the apartheid state, but when it came to marching in the streets they weren't there to persuade by speech, nor were their opponents. Same goes with India. Gandhi didn't want to persuade the British of Indian dignity, he wanted to inflict economic pain and political discomfort on the British ruling class.

And, this may be hard for you to hear, but the peaceful civil disobedience movements were girded by the threat of mass violence against the authorities. In India, the imperial government preferred to deal with the non-violent movement rather than risk enflaming armed resistance. Likewise in the American city halls, the Congress and White House, white politicians preferred to seek accommodations with the civil rights movement not because they often believed in the righteousness of its cause, or because they felt voters would reward them, but because they flinched at the prospect of mobs of rioting blacks burning down the cities. Yes indeed, peaceful resistance was not the only game in town. These are historical facts. My own suspicion is that, without a big stick, speaking loudly is more often than not liable to get you killed and little more. A "good cop, bad cop" analogy comes to mind.

So yeah, you remain basically wrong in no small way.

If this were true then independence would have come sooner for India. You have been describing a war for annihilation, no quarter, that it not "civil", or civilised.

Hoo boy. Are you sure you've read Marx? A lot of conservatives claim to have read Marx, but demonstrate little evidence of reading. What I wrote has nothing to do with Marx in fact, and I'm not sure how you drew the connection. What do you mean by "read back the motivations of a group" and what do you mean by "prior to that group's existence?"

I have read the Communist Manifesto several times as it is meant to be read, in one sitting - I read Marx against his close contemporary Charles Dickens, specifically Dickens' Bleak House which was published a few years later.

I also read some of Marx's historiography - in which he equates the class-struggle of 19th Century Britain (where he habitually resided) with what he perceived as the "struggle" of the medieval serf against his lord and the "struggle" of the Journeyman Craftsman against the Guild. The problem is that Marx essentially invented these "struggles" to fit his narrative of perpetual class-war. The reality is that the Communist Manifesto is a product of specific 19th Century circumstances that pertain to specific places and times - and most specifically to Industrial Britain and its "Dark Satanic Mills".

You are making the same error as Marx is trying to cast the current conflict between Right and Left as going back centuries - it doesn't - it goes back less than 150 years, prior to that what was considered the "Left" is part of what you now consider the "Right".

W-what???

???

I listed a few observations of political and cultural features of the contemporary Right informed by prolonged, broad and direct (admittedly US-centric) experience bolstered by reading 20th century history, and I don't know what it is you think you're talking about here.

You argued some have been attacking Socialist values as far back as 1517 or even 1789 - the forces at play now did not exist then. Hence, there is no continuity of conflict. It's like arguing Christianity and Islam have been "At war for two millennia" just because Christianity has a few left-overs from Roman society and modern Iranian are Muslims.

As I said, this is an essentially Marxist reading of history.

Catalyst for revolution? There is a revolution at hand whether you like it or not. I never asked for one, I'm no man for trying times.

Our economic, social, and political orders consistently fail to respond to the converging existential catastrophes of our time. Revanchist authoritarianism and fascism sweep the planet as democratic consciousness even among the allegedly "developed" countries takes two steps back for every step forward, with relatively few loci of resilience. Either we go under as a species, or we transition to a ruined and fragmented world dominated by fascists, ancaps and warlords in governmental form. Or - and stay with me here Phil - we organize for cooperative democracy on an unprecedented level and redistribute the world's bounty in an equitable and sustainable way. Those are the possibilities, and all of them are revolutionary from the contemporary perspective. Hence the expression "socialism or barbarism." What I'd like you to recognize sooner rather than later is that whatever you think of one, it's always that or the other.

Western societies have been in decline since the end of World War II, Americans have been slower to recognise this than others because America had a late peak after WW II but your country has been in decline ever since you bailed out of the Vietnam War.

Democracy as you understand it has only ever been valued in Northern Europe and the Anglo-sphere, the political and social landscape of the rest of the World, including Southern Europe, has always made it a poor fit. That is not to say these regions of the world are incapable of good government but the reality is the British and Americans invented "Liberal Democracy" for themselves, not others.

I remind you that, at present, the revolution is being televised and everything looks much bigger, scarier and more immediate on TV.

Would you agree that if one's principles can't answer to the situation at hand, then those principles are or have become worthless and and one ought to discover new ones? At a minimum maintain an awareness that your principles MIGHT not measure up to what is required.

If you think values like kindness, compassion, charity, honesty and concern for others before yourself are no longer applicable I don't know what to tell you.

Christ's sake Phil, I know you are a very finicky person but that wall was not for you to respond to (should you want to that's a different story), it was a clarification for you to reflect on at the time and disposition of your choosing. A record of my thoughts so that I wouldn't have to recreate them piecemeal in the future. Would it have helped to relay it at a later date? Never to express what I needed you to recognize would have been intolerable because it would have signified a wasted outpouring of breath. For someone so adamant that others should strive to understand your point of view it stung that you refused to acknowledge my explicit attempt to explain to you how I was doing just that. I have a point of view too.

I imagined that you would digest it at your own discretion and perhaps your updated awareness would manifest in future interactions, but to discover that up to now your only takeaway has been as an opportunity to self-righteously shit all over my sincere outpouring - disappoints me.

You should have taken seriously my polite request to desist, I would not have made it if I had any further wish to engage with your attempts to undermine my world view. In your attempt to persuade me you attacked my character and my intellectual integrity. Being a fairly conventional fellow I feel obliged to respond to someone when they write to me, which is why I responded to you initially, I enjoyed no part of our exchange which I would have thought was obvious from the tone of my replies.

If you had wanted something for me to reflect upon you might have suggested a good book, instead of another confrontational private message that obligated me to respond.

As an example of right wing perniciousness, for all my life and with increasing intensity elements of the Right, diplomatically described as just beneath the mainstream (with tens of millions of users or readers or viewers or listeners), have demanded, threatened, or predicted civil war against their "illegitimate" liberal enemy. You can find hundreds of examples of reactionary bloodlust and apocalyptic mania if you want to get down and dirty with Google. I was literally driven to tears over one example from the Federalist, which I posted about here a year ago.

So far so good and normal (?).

Trump retweeted one such [EDIT: Important to note this was a Fox News guest] in connection to the possibility of his removal from office, after he had already invoked investigating a ranking Democratic Congressman for treason. The mainstay of all robust republican government being of course the impunity of the executive to plunder and to persecute...

Then the Twitter account of one of the largest and most notorious right-wing militia organizations, the Oath Keepers, which has already threatened civil war directly to Democratic politicians such as California's governor and has been vocally obsessed with civil war since at least the Obama years, responded with the following:



Did you know that before 1869 locomotives had no general brakes and each car had to be individually levered to a halt? Trains used to be the #1 cause of violent death before the automobile, you know! But the thing about slow-moving train wrecks is that you can see them coming. Many saw this one coming since 2016.

I never heard of this band before.

About nine years ago I was in a pub talking to a friendly Irishman when he started saying how he wanted to kill then-Prime Minister David Cameron. Mr Cameron had not at that point been in office very long and had not, so far as I was aware, done anything much to justify such a sentiment. Nonetheless, this only slightly tipsy Irishman was all for getting a gun and shooting him dead.

People are terrible and our modern society rewards them - reddit is a fine example of this fact, or rather a terrible example.

You do not oppose such people by adopting their rhetoric, you oppose such people via reasoned argument, thereby demonstrating to those watching the weakness of their position and their moral character.

[Montmorency]

You're doing that thing again where you write four times as much as your interlocutor.

I checked and it's about twice as long as the posts I was replying to. Are we writing under some editorial constraint? Wouldn't you think I was making light of you if I were terse?

The point was originally meant for Beskar in any case. Despite which, you seem to subscribe to the same concept of progress and human improvement - I do not.

I maintain that young people today are improved over their antecedents in many domains, and not any worse in most of the rest. And it's evident throughout the developed world. That demands explanation at a minimum.

If you weren't joking it's definitely an insult. I disdain any connection to someone else's conception of a political ideology or stance.

The way you say that implies you think you have zero ideas in common with any person in general. Aren't you curious how I could make that comment? Whither civility? (To cut to the chase, leftists also often insist that expert opinion should inform the popular will and augment its implementation, not circumscribe them.)

The Fall of Man isn't a concept you are going to be able to debunk to anyone's satisfaction but your own.

The Fall of Man justifies violence whenever you personally think it is justified? I was merely making the obvious point that when violence is justified, including specific cases, is a matter for debate. (Don't take that as an obligation.)

I rather think you are because you should know my point was about the individual - no the collective. I picked Hitler because everyone hates Hitler.

That's my point - don't fall into Great Man thinking.

My specialisation is not theology, and you presume to lecture me on my reading of historical processes.

Well, OK, Medieval Studies, or what was it? I do presume to disagree with you on select matters, yes - that seems unavoidable to me.

I'd deny this narrative is anything other than out of date as a reading of history.

Wow, there's is a significant disagreement over the facts. In your capacity as a scholar who would have command of the relevant literature I appeal that you refer to me some sources that contradict the following. Here is my understanding of the situation in late antiquity:

The story of women and slaves driving the spread of Christianity is the outdated historiography; it appealed to a broad cross-section of society throughout its early existence. Christianity was not a clandestine or marginal religion in the 3rd century, churches owned a lot of property. Roman Christian literature and organization was heavily focused on identifying and suppressing heresies and paganism. Christians held Roman public offices, which naturally were used for all kinds of coercion - but this included the religious sort. The idea that powerful Christian sects and individuals just became passive victims of pagan oppression, but when officially licensed treated pagans with tolerance is wrong. Constantine himself persecuted pagans and tried to enforce his doctrinal Christianity. When Christianity is the state religion of the land, it should be unsurprising that remaining pagan imposes severe limitations to advancement of all sorts at best, and that conversion is incentivized. State persecution of heretics defined the Empire all the way through the fall of the West. I don't know what the successor Germanic kingdoms were doing, but I doubt they were very accommodating.

As for Medieval elite conversion events, I'm thinking of Franks and other mainland Germanic tribes, Nordic/Viking conversions, and Russia and most of Eastern Europe. All involved missionaries converting the aristocracy. Christianity beyond Europe, such as the Caucasus or Axum, spread by elite conversion and imposition as well.

At least you won't go so far as to contest my account of colonial Christianization.

Do you know to which court ruling I refer?

The Royal Navy was not used to "end slavery" so much as it was used to prevent slave trading within British territories after we had banned it.

Where are you going with this?

Security and military resources are enlisted in the enforcement of policy, such as that against slavery, to this day. Slavery doesn't just end when the government says it does, you need enforcement. Without enforcement in government there is only voluntary cooperation and civic education, which can be worked out in domains like traffic law compliance and information sharing to some extent, but slavers are notoriously non-altruistic or ethical.

If this were true then independence would have come sooner for India.

Non-sequitur.

You have been describing a war for annihilation, no quarter, that it not "civil", or civilised.

No?

You are making the same error as Marx is trying to cast the current conflict between Right and Left as going back centuries - it doesn't - it goes back less than 150 years, prior to that what was considered the "Left" is part of what you now consider the "Right".

You argued some have been attacking Socialist values as far back as 1517 or even 1789 - the forces at play now did not exist then. Hence, there is no continuity of conflict. It's like arguing Christianity and Islam have been "At war for two millennia" just because Christianity has a few left-overs from Roman society and modern Iranian are Muslims.

As I said, this is an essentially Marxist reading of history.

I think I see the misunderstanding. It has nothing to do with Marx. When I mentioned 1789 and 1517, you thought I was saying there has been a continuous organized conflict between monolithic "Left and Right" since those times. I was only using those years to signify the ongoing desire among the Pre-modernist Right to overturn the social and political transformations of the French Revolution and (at least the secular aspects) of the Protestant Reformation.

But of course these movements do have continuity with past forms of conservatism and reaction. To reflect it against a little personal context, years ago I had a sort of simplistic understanding of historical transitions. I just assumed things like, after WW1 no one was REALLY a monarchist anymore, after WW2 no one was REALLY a fascist anymore, after the collapse of the USSR no one was REALLY a socialist anymore... History and "progress" seemed much more clean-cut to me. To the point that as a child I imagined that after the Arab conquest of Egypt there were no more "original" Egyptians left, that after the Turkish migrations to Anatolia there were no more Anatolians anymore - just "Turks."

EDIT: To relate to earlier in the post, at some point I had even thought there was a sharp demarcation in Roman history where most people were pagan, then - boom, everyone's Christian. But there were pagans in high places writing bitter accounts even into the 6th century after all.

Eventually I realized the fuzziness of historical (and geographical) boundaries and the continuity of peoples, places, and ideas.

As Luke Skywalker says in The Last Jedi, "No one's ever really gone."

I do like this Internet-famous comment on the eternal conservative though, very apt if overly reductive.

Western societies have been in decline since the end of World War II, Americans have been slower to recognise this than others because America had a late peak after WW II but your country has been in decline ever since you bailed out of the Vietnam War.

How do you define decline? I would probably disagree, barring some cunning semantic device.

Democracy as you understand it has only ever been valued in Northern Europe and the Anglo-sphere, the political and social landscape of the rest of the World, including Southern Europe, has always made it a poor fit. That is not to say these regions of the world are incapable of good government but the reality is the British and Americans invented "Liberal Democracy" for themselves, not others.

Democracy as I understand it has never been practiced in Europe or America on a large scale. Liberal democracy still ultimately veers into oligarchy. Real democracy is horizontal power (though still not necessarily "direct" in governmental form).

If you think values like kindness, compassion, charity, honesty and concern for others before yourself are no longer applicable I don't know what to tell you.

You know that's not what I'm saying and you know your anodyne list doesn't enumerate the principles that go into how society should be ordered, which is what's germane.

Here is an example in the Labour Party of principles failing their test that you should read (or pure stubbornness without principles, but whatever). The failure of Labour's and Momentum's principles are 'merely' in the electoral realm of increasing the Party's advantage. The corollary is that they remain distant from their other-principled goals of improving the common weal. The principles that most need development are the ones conducive to saving the world pretty much. Whatever those are.

You should have taken seriously my polite request to desist, I would not have made it if I had any further wish to engage with your attempts to undermine my world view. In your attempt to persuade me you attacked my character and my intellectual integrity. Being a fairly conventional fellow I feel obliged to respond to someone when they write to me, which is why I responded to you initially, I enjoyed no part of our exchange which I would have thought was obvious from the tone of my replies.

If you had wanted something for me to reflect upon you might have suggested a good book, instead of another confrontational private message that obligated me to respond.

I desisted from argument but not from explanation. The challenge is that you're not accepting the distinction.

From my perspective, it is important to indicate flaws in the thought process; there's no right to have them go unsaid, which is furthermore unhealthy.

Didn't I topline in the last message that you weren't obligated to restart discussion?

How about a compromise: I'm too insensitive and you're too sensitive. Ultimately if I couldn't come up with an approach that didn't upset you I'm a failure.

About nine years ago I was in a pub talking to a friendly Irishman when he started saying how he wanted to kill then-Prime Minister David Cameron. Mr Cameron had not at that point been in office very long and had not, so far as I was aware, done anything much to justify such a sentiment. Nonetheless, this only slightly tipsy Irishman was all for getting a gun and shooting him dead.

People are terrible and our modern society rewards them - reddit is a fine example of this fact, or rather a terrible example.

So did he want to kill him because he hated English politicians as an Irishman? If not, I've heard of a "liberal" who decided Aryans are good and therefore Jews are bad because of something (?) she read on Wikipedia. Random maniacs are one thing; massive cultural ecosystems with millions of members, sophisticated messaging, and representation at all levels of political, social, and economic power - obviously a different ballpark. The fish always rots from the head down when it comes to violence and tyranny. Don't focus on individuals.

You do not oppose such people by adopting their rhetoric

I'm not calling for adopting their rhetoric, but for mass recognition of the implications and extant effects of their ideology and their long-consistent and escalating practices. In fact, I'm certain that right-wing rhetorical styles are inherently ineffective on and repugnant to people on the Left.

you oppose such people via reasoned argument, thereby demonstrating to those watching the weakness of their position and their moral character.

It just doesn't work that way and never has. What we should be trying to persuade people of is the immediate mortal threat of global Reaction, like a Thunberg for fascism. Merely trying to confront their arguments directly is of little use as a strategy toward building power because the lies and the money behind them are unlimited and the public does not primarily respond to reasoned argument in the first place, which as a fan of Classical philosophy you should acknowledge. The Right certainly haven't built power through any form of reasoned argumentation (lol).

What CAN be done - merely winning a few elections is not adequate to the scale of the problem - I don't know. Psychology and education are a definitive barrier here, because there really is a consistent psychological profile to the sort of people who are willing to destroy for narrow gain or who are willing to be easily manipulated. You only need a third to passively watch another third eliminate the last third and whatnot.

You're all allowed to laugh at our political meltdown and we don't complain - the least you can do is reciprocate the indulgence.

Brits are free to comment on American politics, but we prefer they come with the mindset that words and ideas mean something and can be related to facts or knowledge - rather than being mere weapons to annoy or to destroy.

[Philippus Flavius Homovallumus]

I checked and it's about twice as long as the posts I was replying to. Are we writing under some editorial constraint? Wouldn't you think I was making light of you if I were terse?

I tend to strive for a 1:1 ratio - that way it doesn't escalate to someone spending three hours and two cups of coffee to reply.

I maintain that young people today are improved over their antecedents in many domains, and not any worse in most of the rest. And it's evident throughout the developed world. That demands explanation at a minimum.

I disagree, the majority of them didn't vote in the referendum and then complained their parents were "selfish" for wanting to leave the EU. That's evidence of stupidity and ingratitude, not to mention cynicism. They complain about the environment by tweeting from the iPhones.

The way you say that implies you think you have zero ideas in common with any person in general. Aren't you curious how I could make that comment? Whither civility? (To cut to the chase, leftists also often insist that expert opinion should inform the popular will and augment its implementation, not circumscribe them.)

I consider political ideologies dangerous when people propose to put them into practice. Ideaological systems should be confined to universities and not let out.

The Fall of Man justifies violence whenever you personally think it is justified? I was merely making the obvious point that when violence is justified, including specific cases, is a matter for debate. (Don't take that as an obligation.)

No, violence is never "justified", the Fall of Man explains the contradiction of why humans sometimes find it necessary to act in unjust ways. It's because we're basically bad at being people.

That's my point - don't fall into Great Man thinking.

Then I respectfully submit that your point was redundant because no Backroomer now posting is so very foolish. After a decade I take it as read that you are not a stupid man.

Well, OK, Medieval Studies, or what was it? I do presume to disagree with you on select matters, yes - that seems unavoidable to me.

Fine, you presume to debate with me about my expert subject and subjects connected to it - previous denials were merely a rhetorical device.

Wow, there's is a significant disagreement over the facts. In your capacity as a scholar who would have command of the relevant literature I appeal that you refer to me some sources that contradict the following. Here is my understanding of the situation in late antiquity:

You don't say.

The story of women and slaves driving the spread of Christianity is the outdated historiography; it appealed to a broad cross-section of society throughout its early existence.

Whilst this is true early pogroms initiated under Nero and Domitian severely impeded its spread among the Senatorial class whilst not really doing anything to impede its spread among the underclass. Further, early Christian Churches (such as one found a few years ago in Israel) show that women were highly active in funding the early Church. Finally, you have to consider that men, particularly men who were citizens, were also being evangelised by other cults such as that of Mithras which explicitly excluded women.

Christianity was not a clandestine or marginal religion in the 3rd century, churches owned a lot of property.

Less true by the 4th Century because Diocletian had seized a lot of it. Also, ownership of "property" in this period does not equate to "church building". Essentially, Christianity in this period was similar to modern cults, it was socially and politically a fringe element - despite which is was probably the largest cult by the time of Constantine's conversion. Constantine was nonethless the first Emperor to start building or converting Churches - creating edifices to the Christian faith.

Roman Christian literature and organization was heavily focused on identifying and suppressing heresies and paganism.

Early Christians conducted vehement debates but the hunting of "heresy" is something that only begins after the Council of Nicaea when Constantine forces the Bishops to agree basic doctrines. In the following decades Eusobius writes his Ecclesiastical History and then Epiphanius writes the Panarion, which is the first work to catalogue and describe heresies from an Orthodox perspective - at the end of the 4th Century, under Theodosius I.

Christians held Roman public offices, which naturally were used for all kinds of coercion - but this included the religious sort.

In the 3rd Century, under Diocletian, this was strictly illegal. Prior to that it would have been technically illegal in most cases because Roman officers would have needed to observe Roman religious rituals. So any Christians would have been clandestine or at best tolerated as irregular.

The idea that powerful Christian sects and individuals just became passive victims of pagan oppression, but when officially licensed treated pagans with tolerance is wrong.

I never said all Christians were pacifists - I said that prior to Constantine I Christianity did not spread by coercion. Picking at me for some example you can find is a bit pretty - it's like finding a Catholic prist who fathered a child and arguing that because of this bad apple Catholic priests generally ignore the rule about celibacy. Once Constantine became Emperor things did change - as I recall some Christian sects systematically targeted Mithraists. That being said, the Empire itself remainded largely religiously pluralistic.

Constantine himself persecuted pagans and tried to enforce his doctrinal Christianity.

I'll require a citation if you're going to argue he "persecuted" non-Christians. Certainly, he increasingly promoted Christianity - it is why he went to war with his more religiously pluralistic brother-in-law (who may also actually have been a closet Christian).

When Christianity is the state religion of the land, it should be unsurprising that remaining pagan imposes severe limitations to advancement of all sorts at best, and that conversion is incentivized. State persecution of heretics defined the Empire all the way through the fall of the West. I don't know what the successor Germanic kingdoms were doing, but I doubt they were very accommodating.

Arrian Christianity and Nicene Christianity largely co-existed until the Fall of the West. Many Romano-German officers were Arrian (though probably not Flavius Stilicho). After he Conquered Italy Theoderic the great was generally tollerant of Nicene Christians, though he became less so over the years as he increasingly clashed with the senate - ultimately leading him to imprison Boethius and abolish the position of Consul. It was not until the 4th century that Stilicho closed the temple of the Vestal Virgins and and burned the Sibylline Books - prior to that restrictions of Pagans were quite light.

In fact, the concept of persecuting other Christians generally is more a late-medieval thing.

As for Medieval elite conversion events, I'm thinking of Franks and other mainland Germanic tribes, Nordic/Viking conversions, and Russia and most of Eastern Europe. All involved missionaries converting the aristocracy. Christianity beyond Europe, such as the Caucasus or Axum, spread by elite conversion and imposition as well.

The Russ and Norse were converted after Charlemagne, which was my cut-off point for the early spread of Christianity. The Franks were already largely Christian by the time Clovis became Catholic... at the insistence of his wife. Given that my point really pertains to the period before Constantine I officially embraced Christianity I think you're picking only small holes, at best.

At least you won't go so far as to contest my account of colonial Christianization.

Again - not an idiot. If you want to contest this point further, that Early Christianity was spread with fire and the Sword like early Islam you'll have to start a new thread - we've dragged this one far enough off topic.

Where are you going with this?

Security and military resources are enlisted in the enforcement of policy, such as that against slavery, to this day. Slavery doesn't just end when the government says it does, you need enforcement. Without enforcement in government there is only voluntary cooperation and civic education, which can be worked out in domains like traffic law compliance and information sharing to some extent, but slavers are notoriously non-altruistic or ethical.

I'm going with, "I know this history better than you do."

Non-sequitur.

If you say so - according to Indian historiography they had multiple "Wars of Independence" that went exactly nowhere until Ghandi went on hunger strike.

No?

Last week you wanted to utterly destroy the Right, yes?

I think I see the misunderstanding. It has nothing to do with Marx. When I mentioned 1789 and 1517, you thought I was saying there has been a continuous organized conflict between monolithic "Left and Right" since those times. I was only using those years to signify the ongoing desire among the Pre-modernist Right to overturn the social and political transformations of the French Revolution and (at least the secular aspects) of the Protestant Reformation.

I'm sorry, but this really is Marxist historiography. There is not "pre-Modernist Right". The concept does not exist, trying to impose it is grossly anachronistic. In the case of the Protestants it's they who are the reactionary, intolerant, regressive element.

But of course these movements do have continuity with past forms of conservatism and reaction. To reflect it against a little personal context, years ago I had a sort of simplistic understanding of historical transitions. I just assumed things like, after WW1 no one was REALLY a monarchist anymore, after WW2 no one was REALLY a fascist anymore, after the collapse of the USSR no one was REALLY a socialist anymore... History and "progress" seemed much more clean-cut to me. To the point that as a child I imagined that after the Arab conquest of Egypt there were no more "original" Egyptians left, that after the Turkish migrations to Anatolia there were no more Anatolians anymore - just "Turks."

EDIT: To relate to earlier in the post, at some point I had even thought there was a sharp demarcation in Roman history where most people were pagan, then - boom, everyone's Christian. But there were pagans in high places writing bitter accounts even into the 6th century after all.

Eventually I realized the fuzziness of historical (and geographical) boundaries and the continuity of peoples, places, and ideas.

As Luke Skywalker says in The Last Jedi, "No one's ever really gone."

I do like this Internet-famous comment on the eternal conservative though, very apt if overly reductive.

Again, progressive vs conservative is a modern concept. Applying this to history before it's articulated is a gross distortion.

How do you define decline? I would probably disagree, barring some cunning semantic device.

All measures, 100 years ago we had an unassailable advantage in science, technology, economic wealth and military power

Democracy as I understand it has never been practiced in Europe or America on a large scale. Liberal democracy still ultimately veers into oligarchy. Real democracy is horizontal power (though still not necessarily "direct" in governmental form).

OK - you don't believe in practical government - you prefer ideals - noted.

You know that's not what I'm saying and you know your anodyne list doesn't enumerate the principles that go into how society should be ordered, which is what's germane.

Here is an example in the Labour Party of principles failing their test that you should read (or pure stubbornness without principles, but whatever). The failure of Labour's and Momentum's principles are 'merely' in the electoral realm of increasing the Party's advantage. The corollary is that they remain distant from their other-principled goals of improving the common weal. The principles that most need development are the ones conducive to saving the world pretty much. Whatever those are.

I feel like you're attacking my principles, though, so those are my principles. If you struggle to accept that it's because you're trying to fit me into an American Right-Wing Christian pigeon hole.

Frankly, I think you're doing the same to Furunculus - rather than engaging us and trying to understand our positions you just filter what we say through your preconceptions as a way to understand it.

Consider - most Brits, including myself, would consider that the Average American view of healthcare is insane.

I desisted from argument but not from explanation. The challenge is that you're not accepting the distinction.

From my perspective, it is important to indicate flaws in the thought process; there's no right to have them go unsaid, which is furthermore unhealthy.

Didn't I topline in the last message that you weren't obligated to restart discussion?

How about a compromise: I'm too insensitive and you're too sensitive. Ultimately if I couldn't come up with an approach that didn't upset you I'm a failure.

I wrote:

Those are my views on the points you raise. Given that this discussion has reached an impasse and has become unpleasantly personal I would prefer not to continue it.


Kind Regards,


Philip

What part of this seemed like an opening to offer more opinions? Especially since you wrote to me first? That's the great part about etiquite (which I am breaking in a probably futile attempt to explain this) - you don't need to be sensitive, you just need to follow the rules.

So did he want to kill him because he hated English politicians as an Irishman? If not, I've heard of a "liberal" who decided Aryans are good and therefore Jews are bad because of something (?) she read on Wikipedia. Random maniacs are one thing; massive cultural ecosystems with millions of members, sophisticated messaging, and representation at all levels of political, social, and economic power - obviously a different ballpark. The fish always rots from the head down when it comes to violence and tyranny. Don't focus on individuals.

He just wanted to kill him for being a Conservative, I think - I'm English and he was quite happy to drink with me, and not in the "Englishmen are bastards but you're alright" way, either.

I'm not calling for adopting their rhetoric, but for mass recognition of the implications and extant effects of their ideology and their long-consistent and escalating practices. In fact, I'm certain that right-wing rhetorical styles are inherently ineffective on and repugnant to people on the Left.

Are you aware that Left-Wing rhetorical styles tend to be repugnant to people on the Right? There's beeen some research on this with regard to explaining climate change. People on the Left tend to focus on long-term future consequences at the expense of short-term consequences. People on the Right tend not to listen to this because the projections are usually off (because Science isn't exact at predictions) and people lose their jobs. On the other hand, people on the Left are either ignorant or dismissive of the past and don't think about how things used to be.

All you need to do to explain climate change to someone on the Right is point at a river and go "that used to be full of fish" and they get it, but people on the Left are naturally disinclined to make that argument because they don't look to the past to inform the present or the future.

It just doesn't work that way and never has. What we should be trying to persuade people of is the immediate mortal threat of global Reaction, like a Thunberg for fascism. Merely trying to confront their arguments directly is of little use as a strategy toward building power because the lies and the money behind them are unlimited and the public does not primarily respond to reasoned argument in the first place, which as a fan of Classical philosophy you should acknowledge. The Right certainly haven't built power through any form of reasoned argumentation (lol).

What CAN be done - merely winning a few elections is not adequate to the scale of the problem - I don't know. Psychology and education are a definitive barrier here, because there really is a consistent psychological profile to the sort of people who are willing to destroy for narrow gain or who are willing to be easily manipulated. You only need a third to passively watch another third eliminate the last third and whatnot.

Firstly, Miss Thurberg is a distraction being used by politicians - which is a shame. Secondly, Fascism is, by its nature, un-civil. One of the reasons Oswald Mosely never took off was that the British, being reserved and disinclined to parades, to uniforms, or shouting, found all the trappings of Fascism repugnant.

You want to defeat Fascism - rebuild civil society, instead of coming down to their level and being un-civil.

Brits are free to comment on American politics, but we prefer they come with the mindset that words and ideas mean something and can be related to facts or knowledge - rather than being mere weapons to annoy or to destroy.

Wrong thread.

[Pannonian]

Are you aware that Left-Wing rhetorical styles tend to be repugnant to people on the Right? There's beeen some research on this with regard to explaining climate change. People on the Left tend to focus on long-term future consequences at the expense of short-term consequences. People on the Right tend not to listen to this because the projections are usually off (because Science isn't exact at predictions) and people lose their jobs. On the other hand, people on the Left are either ignorant or dismissive of the past and don't think about how things used to be.

The left (well, centre) have been pointing out the detrimental effects of Brexit, with reference to expert opinions, material evidence and consistent logic. Can you point out the short term benefits of Brexit? Medium term? Long term?

In the other thread, I've posted Dominic Grieve (former Tory AG) accusing Dominic Cummings of lying about Remainer collusion with foreign governments. IA prefers to believe the Mail's story and unsourced accusation. Is this typical right wing debating methodology that the left needs to be sympathetic to? I've also posted news that the NI police don't want to be involved with the border, and Furunculus has dismissed this even though he offers no argument while it's the NI's chief constable who says this. Is this right wing debating methodology that the left has to be sympathetic to too?

My debating methodology is simple and consistent. It's the engineering method. Define the problem, then go through a series of processes examining the problem and possible solutions, with evidence-based assessment informing each stage. It's neither intrinsically left wing nor right wing, although the left tends to be more sympathetic to the approach. It's the approach that works. Am I unreasonable for preferring this method?

[Montmorency]

I tend to strive for a 1:1 ratio - that way it doesn't escalate to someone spending three hours and two cups of coffee to reply.

It depends on what remains unresolved. I'm not trying to pursue every disagreement though.

I disagree, the majority of them didn't vote in the referendum and then complained their parents were "selfish" for wanting to leave the EU. That's evidence of stupidity and ingratitude, not to mention cynicism. They complain about the environment by tweeting from the iPhones.

It's relative.

I consider political ideologies dangerous when people propose to put them into practice. Ideaological systems should be confined to universities and not let out.

You think you don't have an ideology?

Fine, you presume to debate with me about my expert subject and subjects connected to it - previous denials were merely a rhetorical device.

You're an expert on everything currently under discussion? What a polymath.

I'll require a citation if you're going to argue he "persecuted" non-Christians. Certainly, he increasingly promoted Christianity - it is why he went to war with his more religiously pluralistic brother-in-law (who may also actually have been a closet Christian).

So, what you've written isn't much contradicting my point* but to continue would demand considerable citations on both are parts, which you've intimated you hate to do with me. For my part I don't want to read whole books like this one for the sake of argument.

To respond to the quoted, here's a Wiki.

*Which was not that Christianity spread primarily by military conquest (neither did Islam for the most part after the first auspicious century), but of the prominence of elite institutions and individuals in its spread.

I'm going with, "I know this history better than you do."

You haven't shown it.

Why don't we agree to settle this narrowly: here's a paper (which I haven't read yet) titled "Public Opinion and Parliament in the Abolition of the British Slave Trade." It's of average length. Can we come back tomorrow and have a verdict on whose concept of history it hews closest to? Just for the sake of these posts.

If you say so - according to Indian historiography they had multiple "Wars of Independence" that went exactly nowhere until Ghandi went on hunger strike.

Right, so what's your point?

Last week you wanted to utterly destroy the Right, yes?

What does this have to do with Indian independence?

I'm sorry, but this really is Marxist historiography. There is not "pre-Modernist Right". The concept does not exist, trying to impose it is grossly anachronistic. In the case of the Protestants it's they who are the reactionary, intolerant, regressive element.

You're still not understanding me, jeez. Pre-Modernist refers not to their direct provenance but to their worldview!!! For example, if fascists are a modernist ideology then monarchists and antisecularists (almost always) are pre-modernist, though both are contemporary forms of reactionary movement. Is this difficult to understand? Here's a helpful link.

All measures, 100 years ago we had an unassailable advantage in science, technology, economic wealth and military power

Your idea of decline is relative power, despite the fact that in absolute terms we're more powerful and prosperous than ever before? Yikes.

OK - you don't believe in practical government - you prefer ideals - noted.

What's the meaningful distinction in relation to yourself?

I feel like you're attacking my principles, though, so those are my principles. If you struggle to accept that it's because you're trying to fit me into an American Right-Wing Christian pigeon hole.

Frankly, I think you're doing the same to Furunculus - rather than engaging us and trying to understand our positions you just filter what we say through your preconceptions as a way to understand it.

Consider - most Brits, including myself, would consider that the Average American view of healthcare is insane.

I've been trying to explain why your understanding of your own principles is wrong. I think I understand them very well and that you haven't sufficiently considered their full implications.

What part of this seemed like an opening to offer more opinions? Especially since you wrote to me first? That's the great part about etiquite (which I am breaking in a probably futile attempt to explain this) - you don't need to be sensitive, you just need to follow the rules.

Well, your rules. I can admit to doing a bad job relating to you.

Are you aware that Left-Wing rhetorical styles tend to be repugnant to people on the Right? There's beeen some research on this with regard to explaining climate change. People on the Left tend to focus on long-term future consequences at the expense of short-term consequences. People on the Right tend not to listen to this because the projections are usually off (because Science isn't exact at predictions) and people lose their jobs.

I would be more inclined to believe this if so many on the Right weren't convinced of absolute falsehoods, falsehoods that are documented to be calculated promulgations by the political strategy of industry and right-wing billionaires. In fact, in the barest terms polling consistently shows that the idea of preserving the air, water, land, and climate is quite popular among the self-identifying Right. The conspiracies are what muddle it more than anything, which ultimately makes opposition to climate action on the Right a matter of group identity - just like immigration, gender norms, and all the rest. Everything becomes subsumed to culture war. Again, keep in mind who started the fire.

On the other hand, people on the Left are either ignorant or dismissive of the past and don't think about how things used to be.

What does that mean?

All you need to do to explain climate change to someone on the Right is point at a river and go "that used to be full of fish" and they get it, but people on the Left are naturally disinclined to make that argument because they don't look to the past to inform the present or the future.

This is a little warmer, but I think the difference is between abstract and personal. Leftist rhetoric around climate change is very abstract, referring to general harms and responsibilities and vast obscure inhuman phenomena . To my recollection study shows that personal moral engagement on the importance of action/consequences of inaction is more effective than "rational argumentation" about cause and effect. This is true on the part of both right and left wing audiences.

Firstly, Miss Thurberg is a distraction being used by politicians - which is a shame.

The politicians are the distraction. Her aim is to agitate the world audience, to instill more proximate alarm.

Secondly, Fascism is, by its nature, un-civil. One of the reasons Oswald Mosely never took off was that the British, being reserved and disinclined to parades, to uniforms, or shouting, found all the trappings of Fascism repugnant.

I would think a more important factor would be the withdrawal of funding and support by Mussolini's regime in 1937/8.

You want to defeat Fascism - rebuild civil society, instead of coming down to their level and being un-civil.

See, this is just infuriating. "Rebuild civil society" is what the Left is trying to do, and is orders of magnitude more civil than the fascists, yet you would criticize both in the most blandly generic terms.

Wrong thread.