Obama admin to sue BP

[Zarn]

Did I say that? Hopefully you are not trying to imply that either the medicare giveaway or TARP was left-wing. Now that would be silly.

Taking money from anyone, and giving it to someone else is government control. That is left-wing.

But a leftist certainly wouldn't go about it the way Republicans (and Democrats for that matter) do.

The bigger the government, the more left-wing it is.

[Mechaman]

Meh.  It was an epic screwup and if the people of the affected area feel like BP and other companies involved haven't fully paid off the damages incurred then a suit may be in order.  However, due to the cooperative attitude I have seen so far I don't expect either side to fight to the bitter end.
The only question is: How far is the Administration going to take this?

[Filuwaúrdjan]

The bigger the government, the more left-wing it is.

How can people say such stupid things with such confidence?

[Zarn]

The bigger the government, the more left-wing it is.

How can people say such stupid things with such confidence?

That might be, because it is not a stupid thing to say.

[I spent the winter writing songs about getting better]

The bigger the government, the more left-wing it is.

How can people say such stupid things with such confidence?

Kind of makes you wish there was a Stupidity Goldmine doesn't it? There's no other place comments like that can properly belong.

[Zarn]

The bigger the government, the more left-wing it is.

How can people say such stupid things with such confidence?

Kind of makes you wish there was a Stupidity Goldmine doesn't it? There's no other place comments like that can properly belong.

Someone thinks a lot of the B they currently have in their history class.

Do you see how inappropriate that looks?

[Frink]

The bigger the government, the more left-wing it is.

How can people say such stupid things with such confidence?

Supposedly, in the land of the free, stupidity is considered a valuable trait.

[Phony Moderate]

The bigger the government, the more left-wing it is.

How can people say such stupid things with such confidence?

That might be, because it is not a stupid thing to say.

Since you did not provide any evidence to back up your claim, you presumably realise that it was a stupid thing to say.

[Zarn]

The bigger the government, the more left-wing it is.

How can people say such stupid things with such confidence?

That might be, because it is not a stupid thing to say.

Since you did not provide any evidence to back up your claim, you presumably realise that it was a stupid thing to say.

China, Cuba, North Korea, USSR... that's big government. That's socialism and communism.

It's not a stupid thing to say.

If I said the sky is blue and didn't back it up, was it stupid to say?

[Filuwaúrdjan]

Are all dictatorships left-wing?

[Phony Moderate]

China, Cuba, North Korea, USSR... that's big government. That's socialism and communism.

None of those countries are or ever have been socialist or communist.

[Zarn]

China, Cuba, North Korea, USSR... that's big government. That's socialism and communism.

None of those countries are or ever have been socialist or communist.

Where's your evidence?

Besides, no one is going to argue that those are right-wing... no one outside of extremists.

[○∙◄☻¥tπ[╪AV┼cVê└]

Wait, he forgot to be a moderate hero?

[Zarn]

Wait, he forgot to be a moderate hero?

This is right-wing. It removes the responsibility away from the taxpayer.

[Mechaman]

The bigger the government, the more left-wing it is.

How can people say such stupid things with such confidence?

That might be, because it is not a stupid thing to say.

Since you did not provide any evidence to back up your claim, you presumably realise that it was a stupid thing to say.

China, Cuba, North Korea, USSR... that's big government. That's socialism and communism.

It's not a stupid thing to say.

If I said the sky is blue and didn't back it up, was it stupid to say?

That doesn't mean that ALL big government equals LEFT WING.
Take for instance Nazi Germany, Mussolini Italy, Pinochet Chile (despite what anti-libertarians want to believe, government isn't small if it actively purges citizens), or Franco Spain which are commonly identified (by Europeans no less) as being centre or right wing dictatorships.  

Why do you feel such an urge to bring up arguments like this thread after thread Zarn?  It doesn't really matter what "wing" dictators or big government bureaucracies are, just that they are dicks.  Personally I don't think it takes a genius to tell that Mao Zedong, Joseph Stalin, Pol Pot, Adolf Hitler, Benito Mussolini, the Taliban, Augusto Pinochet were all dicks.

Hey I think left wingers are idiots too but I don't resort to calling all examples of bigger government as "left wing".  Besides I thought you were libertarian, so why bother with this kind of futile exercise?  Why defend the right wing and try to portray the Left as the source of all evil in this world?

Sorry if this post pisses you off, but I just find it interesting how hard you defend the Right.

[Zarn]

The bigger the government, the more left-wing it is.

How can people say such stupid things with such confidence?

That might be, because it is not a stupid thing to say.

Since you did not provide any evidence to back up your claim, you presumably realise that it was a stupid thing to say.

China, Cuba, North Korea, USSR... that's big government. That's socialism and communism.

It's not a stupid thing to say.

If I said the sky is blue and didn't back it up, was it stupid to say?

That doesn't mean that ALL big government equals LEFT WING.
Take for instance Nazi Germany, Mussolini Italy, Pinochet Chile (despite what anti-libertarians want to believe, government isn't small if it actively purges citizens), or France Spain which are commonly identified (by Europeans no less) as being centre or right wing dictatorships. 

Why do you feel such an urge to bring up arguments like this thread after thread Zarn?  It doesn't really matter what "wing" dictators or big government bureaucracies are, just that they are dicks.  Personally I don't think it takes a genius to tell that Mao Zedong, Joseph Stalin, Pol Pot, Adolf Hitler, Benito Mussolini, the Taliban, Augusto Pinochet were all dicks.

Hey I think left wingers are idiots too but I don't resort to calling all examples of bigger government as "left wing".  Besides I thought you were libertarian, so why bother with this kind of futile exercise?  Why defend the right wing and try to portray the Left as the source of all evil in this world?

Sorry if this post pisses you off, but I just find it interesting how hard you defend the Right.

When the French adopted the wings, it started with the right-wing as conservative and left-wing as liberal. However, over time socialism, communism, and other forms of state control economic structures sprang up and took over what was considered left-wing. As a result, the right-wing become the capitalists. Throughout history we have seen handouts that would be seen as left-wing here in the states but were considered to be administrated by right-wing governments (monarchies, dictatorships). There is also control of industry, in say Nazi Germany. Even in war, government overtaking industry is left-wing, no matter the country. If you control the economy, you control the people. That's big government at it's worst. No amount of putting "In God we trust" on currency, teaching intelligent design, or refusing to legalize pot amounts to that. It makes no sense to have dictatorships that act very similarly to be on completely different ends of the spectrum.

[I spent the winter writing songs about getting better]

By this logic left-wingers should love Reagan and right-wingers should love Clinton (who scaled back the size of government.)

[Zarn]

By this logic left-wingers should love Reagan and right-wingers should love Clinton (who scaled back the size of government.)

Reality is strange, isn't it?

[Filuwaúrdjan]

When the French adopted the wings, it started with the right-wing as conservative and left-wing as liberal.

Well, no. Those who sat on the left were opposed to the monarchy, those who sat on the right were supportive of it. We can apply words like 'liberal' and 'conservative' to those positions, but only with great care. Those opposed to the monarchy were, in particular, very diverse. Liberalism as an ideology was in any case as much of an expression of the other great revolution of that general period (ie; the Industrial Revolution) as that of the radical side of the French Revolution. The key point, really, is that the Left were opposed to the traditional ordering of society, while the Right were in favour of it. It has nothing - and had nothing - to do with state control in its own right. What matters are not the means, but the intentions.

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Just like that? And socialism as merely a form of 'state controlled economic structure'? That's a novel argument.

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lol

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Here you bluster and generalise but provide no actual evidence to back up your assertion. That's because there isn't any; the idea that left=state control, right=no state control is largely an American construction of the 1960s and 1970s. No one thought in terms like that before then; an argument that (for example) protectionism is left-wing because it involves state control over the economy would have been met with derisive laughter in most of Europe before the War.

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Not as much as American right-wingers find it ever-so-important to claim. Most industrialists did very well out of the Nazi regime up until quite near the end.

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Is it? How interesting. Is war then itself left-wing? And peace right-wing?

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Sub-Hayekian blather and worthless cliché.

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Of course that assumes that there is such a thing as an objective political spectrum (a curious idea that makes no logical sense) and that all dictatorships do indeed act very similarly. Which, other than in a broad sense like 'they kill people' or 'they are not democratic', is observably untrue. The internal structures and ultimate objectives of the Nazi state and the Soviet Union under Stalin had curiously little in common.

[Mechaman]

Which wing was it that supported free trade again in the 19th century?!
Was it really those capitalist Republicans and Conservatives?
Surely it couldn'tve been those damn radical socialist Democrats or British Whigs and Liberals!

Face it, identifying the amount of government intervention within the so-called ideological wing is idiocy.
That is why trying to identify things as "Left" or "Right" fails hard.  That is why some charts have "Authoritarian" and "Libertarian" wings in them.

Big Government isn't "Left", it isn't "Right", it's AUTHORITARIAN.