America: A potential spectrum shift to the left?

[0ni0n]

America has been perpetually progressive towards the left, emancipation and abolishment of slavery, universal suffrage regardless sex or race, feminist movement, union, anti-war rallies, gay marriage, etc. Liberals have been our sole driver of social progress for the past 50-70 years. The fundamental reason conservatism has been diminishing is because the values it represents inevitably become obsolete over time. It's just matter of time.

[guartz]

Nationalism brought on by "terrorism" pulled American further right then it would generally tend settle. Bush worked hard to keep the Nationalistic fervour as long as he could, but with Obama the pressure is releasing, causing American politics to settle back to normal.

Skimmed the thread, sorry if I missed someone else saying this.

See this always confuses me, what do you mean by "right" in your explanation? Do you mean, further right, as in "conservatism?"

or what?

I mean, what the hell is right and left here anyway?

I'm pretty sure asking explanation for right and left is like asking 4chan to count to 10.

So we are not constantly confused, I propose a simpler and way more accurate interpretation of American politics. In a specific order;

Washington interests,
and
Corporate interests
and
civilian interests

[SwampdonkeyPLD]

It's funny that both the right and the left think each other has a bigger machine and that both think the realities of life fit their philosophies. And to add something, I think America is headed in the direction Alex de Tocqueville predicted.

[ozz]

don't act offended that I gave a flippant, ridiculous response when you fielded a pretty ridiculous and far out hypothetical situation.

we only paid 249B out of 3 trillion budget/2.5 trillion revenue last year on interest; we're far far away from even thinking about our interest obligations being more than our revenue.

United States public debt - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

These agencies have indicated that under current law, sometime between 2030 and 2040, mandatory spending (primarily Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, and interest on the national debt) will exceed tax revenue.

I mean, I guess you could call 20 years ridiculous and far out, but I plan on living past 40 so I guess it's more relevant for me

[0ni0n]

This is pretty much it...America has always been a left leaning nation(up to 80% of country at times), the issue is that politics favors conservatives and reality favors liberals. If the democratic voting base turned out in the same percentage as the republicans did...there'd never be a single republican person in office...ever.

We are liberal when compared to middle east or mush part of Asia. To Europe, we are like a puerile nation where belief in evolution, discrimination of marijuana, legalization of gay marriage are an eternal debate that should never be an issue to begin with. The fact that politics favors conservatives and reality favors liberals is because everyone wants to support things that make them warm and fuzzy inside, "war on drugs", "no child left behind", family values, etc. They sound noble and woefully inadequate in practice.

[guartz]

evolution is liberal?

[0ni0n]

evolution is liberal?

Seeing how all the people I know have issue with evolution are all conservative. From their point of view, yes, it's liberal.

[ZarakiKujata]

There are liberal people who don't believe in evolution, e.g. Sherri Shepard on The View (iirc from HuffPost they had a brouhaha about it this week)

[0ni0n]

There are liberal people who don't believe in evolution, e.g. Sherri Shepard on The View (iirc from HuffPost they had a brouhaha about it this week)

There are people who disbelieve in evolution, chide at gay marriage, pro life and still call themselves liberals. They aren't. Also, being liberal obviously doesn't prevent people being ignorant or stupid. I don't want to generalize it, and i am only reflecting my own observation that the people i know who don't know believe in evolution are conservatives.

[guartz]

I think this whole right, left thing is a very effective propaganda tool imho. Just takes a moments thought to realize it.

[0ni0n]

I think the left and right dichotomy is by design since we have the two-party system in the states. Polarization occurs when players are trying their best to distinguish themselves.

[guartz]

I think the left and right dichotomy is by design since we have the two-party system in the states. Polarization occurs when players are trying their best to distinguish themselves.

Right, and without centralized ideology and consistency both terms are meaningless.

[Kuya]

America has been perpetually progressive towards the left, emancipation and abolishment of slavery, universal suffrage regardless sex or race, feminist movement, union, anti-war rallies, gay marriage, etc. Liberals have been our sole driver of social progress for the past 50-70 years. The fundamental reason conservatism has been diminishing is because the values it represents inevitably become obsolete over time. It's just matter of time.

Oh god, the philosophes all over again.

There are people who disbelieve in evolution, chide at gay marriage, pro life and still call themselves liberals. They aren't. Also, being liberal obviously doesn't prevent people being ignorant or stupid. I don't want to generalize it, and i am only reflecting my own observation that the people i know who don't know believe in evolution are conservatives.

Wrooooooooooooooooooooooong. For starters, technically, we're all liberals. Second, a second wave liberal probably does not support same sex marriage or abortion, a third wave liberal might, but these don't really care about evolution.

[0ni0n]

Oh god, the philosophes all over again.

Call it what you want. Being progressive is here to stay, you better get used to it.

[Kuya]

History has never been about progress, i don't even know how you can hold such a baseless belief.

[0ni0n]

History has never been about progress, i don't even know how you can hold such a baseless belief.

Are you being sarcastic? My meter is at the shop for routine maintenance.

[Kuya]

Anyone who knows ANYTHING about the "homosexual phenomenon" and the sexual liberation movement knows that it was ten times more progressive in the 70s than now, ever since the 80s sexuality has become more "conservative" and the gay community has become heteronormatized, this is not liberal. Anyone who knows ANYTHING about politics knows that democracy in the US has been progressively decaying since the 1930s, Congress has been slowly losing power and legitimacy while the executive's powers grow more and more centralized leaving more space for the very resource oriented client democracy. Anyone who knows anything about feminism and the female movement knows that the female body has become an essential commodity to be sliced and packaged at will while women are still charged with with both duty over the home and now the workplace.

There is no such thing as a perpetually linear movement of history towards a progressive goal. Hell, the environment is decaying as we speak, and destroying it used to be considered progress! The belief in perpetual progress only leads one towards dogmatic notions of their own beliefs while considering all others as regressive forces, it also goes hand in hand with a severe ignorance of history and context.

[0ni0n]

Anyone who knows ANYTHING about the "homosexual phenomenon" and the sexual liberation movement knows that it was ten times more progressive in the 70s than now, ever since the 80s sexuality has become more "conservative" and the gay community has become heteronormatized, this is not liberal. Anyone who knows ANYTHING about politics knows that democracy in the US has been progressively decaying since the 1930s, Congress has been slowly losing power and legitimacy while the executive's powers grow more and more centralized leaving more space for the very resource oriented client democracy. Anyone who knows anything about feminism and the female movement knows that the female body has become an essential commodity to be sliced and packaged at will while women are still charged with with both duty over the home and now the workplace.

There is no such thing as a perpetually linear movement of history towards a progressive goal. Hell, the environment is decaying as we speak, and destroying it used to be considered progress! The belief in perpetual progress only leads one towards dogmatic notions of their own beliefs while considering all others as regressive forces, it also goes hand in hand with a severe ignorance of history and context.

How did public acceptance and recognition of gay marriage have a better chance in the 70s than now? And how did sexuality become more conservative since the 80s? I never said it's a linear movement but that it's positive correlated. By that I mean as time goes on, we become more socially progressive. We are more environmentally aware than ever before, there's an entire industry devoted to everything green, green energy, bio-degradable packaging, carbon emission and footprint that were not cared or talked about in the previous decades. The environment only seems more decay because there are more people studying it and finding out how bad the problem really is.

Give me a solid example indicative of how America, as a whole, retrogrades in terms of social progress.

[Darus Grey]

How did public acceptance and recognition of gay marriage have a better chance in the 70s than now? And how did sexuality become more conservative since the 80s? I never said it's a linear movement but that it's positive correlated. By that I mean as time goes on, we become more socially progressive. We are more environmentally aware than ever before, there's an entire industry devoted to everything green, green energy, bio-degradable packaging, carbon emission and footprint that were not cared or talked about in the previous decades. The environment only seems more decay because there are more people studying it and finding out how bad the problem really is.

Give me a solid example indicative of how America, as a whole, retrogrades in terms of social progress.

Watch a movie from the 70s/early 80s.

Watch a movie now. Especially watch things like movies about rome and greece...naked bodies all over the place in 70s/80s...for same type of movies now, completely sterlized.

[Kuya]

How did public acceptance and recognition of gay marriage have a better chance in the 70s than now? And how did sexuality become more conservative since the 80s? I never said it's a linear movement but that it's positive correlated. By that I mean as time goes on, we become more socially progressive. We are more environmentally aware than ever before, there's an entire industry devoted to everything green, green energy, bio-degradable packaging, carbon emission and footprint that were not cared or talked about in the previous decades. The environment only seems more decay because there are more people studying it and finding out how bad the problem really is.

Give me a solid example indicative of how America, as a whole, retrogrades in terms of social progress.

You don't seem to get it. History isn't about progress and it isn't about regression. This is like making a generalization, it never works, and everytime you do the only thing you do is fool yourself. By believing that history moves towards progress you inherently place yourself in the position to disregard anything negative (assuming it's even negative to you) as nothing but a temporary road block when it in fact could be something else entirely; it breeds absolutism. Furthermore, what's good for you (yay gays getting married hooray! somehow this is good for you) isn't necessarily good for someone else which might also still be good for you (hooray the institution of marriage is getting legitimized!). The plurality of the gay community has been dying since the 70s, if it isn't dead already, so much so that many are splintering away from it. Gays being turned into the mirror image of heterosexuals is not good at all, it not only obfuscates where and what homosexuality is, it also tries to unify it under a paradigm that doesn't benefit everyone, one could even argue that it's subversive, because if there's anything history should have taught you by now, it's that the guy who says he's trying to liberate you, is likely your future oppressor.

And to be more concise, what you don't seem to get is that gay marriage has NEVER been the raison d'être of the then gay community, it wasn't important nor relevant. Gay marriage is a niche issue, and you don't judge how accepted homosexuals are by whether gay marriage exists or not, hell the very phrase gay marriage proves my point of how absurd the concept of homosexuality as a behaviour and an identity has become. The moment when we can speak of homosexual behaviour without conflating it with an identity, the moment we can speak of this without referring to absolute categories, the moment we can speak of it without referring to pathologizing phrases, is the moment that real progress has been gained because that was always the goal since the 1900s, a goal that has since then been derailed. Similarly, sexuality was never about how much you can talk about sex in a given day or how much semi nude photo shopped bodies you could get inside of TV without being censored in any given moment; what sort of notion of progress is this? We've always been obsessed with sexuality, even as far back as the 1700s, we've always talked about it, and the reason we spoke of it and the context in which we spoke of it was hygiene, and that hasn't changed. The point of the sexual liberation movement was plurality, that plurality does not exist now. Being able to have sex with your girlfriend as much as you like without being ashamed of it and without being hit by a nun with a ruler (imagery i've no doubt you use to represent your view on sexuality right now) is sexual liberation for someone perhaps, but it isn't for everyone else, nor does it have to be or was ever meant to be the only form of liberation, that is, if you can even argue that it's liberation anymore.

edit: all this to say that history and sociological phenomena are too complex and too multi dimensional to ever be making a statement about it being progressive or regressive, or even having a positive slant (note how you denote your view of how society should be as inherently positive, with that kind of certainty there is no room for questioning). Making linear statements denotes linear thinking, and in a world as complex as ours, i don't know how good that is.

edit2: America doesn't progress and it doesn't regress (a statement that no doubt people will oppose since it flies in the face of their orthodoxy), what happens is that particularly important things to you may either seem to progress or regress but this is always according to your perception and your values and no one else's.