User talk:The Four Deuces/Archives/2019/August

Cornish on the UK article

In my recent edit I used heavy language to give a different opinion about Hebrew and Cornish. I did not intend it to be dismissive of you or your opinion in the way it might be read, so apologies. I can sometimes be a little over dramatic with vocabulary when a single succinct word doesn't come immediately to mind. Roger 8 Roger (talk) 04:06, 6 August 2019 (UTC)

Not a problem. Cornish is not a of major importance to the article but I thought it was significant enough to mention. TFD (talk) 04:33, 6 August 2019 (UTC)

Communism discussions

Please, forgive me if the message is too long, but read it all when you can because it's very important. I would like to invite you to state your thoughts here and to these other, related discussions as well as to social democracy. I'm writing you because you confirmed my belief that Communism is capitalised specifically to distinquish it from communism; however, I believe this is a serious issue, not much different from libertarian actually being a synonym of anarchist and National Socialism being German far-right fascism and not socialism or left-wing in any way, in that the same word means two vastly different things; and my belief that we should use communism only in reference to communism and Marxism–Leninism instead of Communism because the latter refers to so-called Communist regimes (in practice self-declared socialist states governed by a communist party which follow Marxism–Leninism, isn't it true?). Even if there was a consensus to use Communism instead of Marxism–Leninism in pages such as Communist state, Crimes against humanity under Communist regimes and Mass killings under communist regimes, I believe at least in texts we should use Marxism–Leninism so as to avoid conflating communism as a whole with that and avoid any further confusion; and there's enough confusion about communism which is already confused with Communist regimes. There's a clear POV against communism; these states actually referred to themselves as socialist and therefore they have more to do with socialism rather than communism, even if their suppossed far-away goal was communism; they're more state socialists that communists, perhaps state socialists committed to communism but nonetheless more state socialists than communists. This is confirmed by the fact that one user rejected my proposal to use the more neutral and inclusive plain red flag for the communism sidebar instead of the hammer and sickle commonly associated with socialist states rather than communism as a whole, saying: "The problem is the red flag is associated with social democratic and socialist parties and movements that are not in any way communist", like he/she doesn't want communism to be associated with socialism and social democracy. Indeed, many socialists and social democrats actually do that, but they're merely opposed to Communist regimes, not communist theory per se, even if they may disagree with it. The thing is that ever since the Cold War the word communism or Communism has been associated with Communist regimes and Marxism–Leninism and it still does so; even Marxism itself was conflated with Stalinism and Marxism–Leninism; and so you see people like Mugabe being referred to as Marxists when in reality it's meant to mean Marxist–Leninists. What I'm trying to say is that the word itself doesn't necesserly matter; what matters is what the word actually mean. Just like National Socialism actually mean German far-right fascism, Communism and Communist regimes/states actually mean Marxism–Leninism and Marxist–Leninist regimes/states; all states referenced to as Communist regimes followed some form of Marxism–Leninism; and communism isn't just Marxism–Leninism. Anyway, I apologise for writing this essay, I reference you check these talks to read all my reasons/objections and I hope you understand what I'm saying; if I'm wrong, I will accept and have no problem with it, but I want at least to be understood and I'm afraid I didn't explain my reasons good enough. I hope you will understand my reasons so that you can tell me whether I'm wrong; and if you agree, we can discuss what can be done about it.--79.41.31.92 (talk) 03:55, 17 August 2019 (UTC)

Huey Long

Forgive me for dropping by, but I am absolutely intrigued, and I didn't think opening a kettle of fish on the antifa talk page would be helpful. You said that Huey Long was "right wing." I'll certainly stipulate that Huey Long shows some of the weaknesses of trying to fit all politics into a right/left divide, but what about him makes you consider him right wing? Feel free to ignore me, if you wish, but I had to ask. Cheers. Dumuzid (talk) 04:50, 21 August 2019 (UTC)

(There is a discussion about the topic at Radical right (United States)#The Great Depression.} Long's ideology to the extent he had one was commitment to capitalism which he thought was threatened by corrupt Wall St bankers. So he was the champion of small capitalists - farmers and small businessmen. In fact after villainizing big business and local elites, he governed with their support or collaboration. He opposes union rights, work safety laws and most social welfare programs. He appointed a right wing conspiracy theorist (Father Coughlin) and a Nazi to lead his Share the Wealth Program whose leaders became leaders of the far right. The machine he left behind (the Lousiana Democratic Party) was considered not only more right-wing than other state Democratic Parties but more right-wing than other atate Republican Parties.

While some might argue that his rhethoric sounded left-wing, the same could be said of any right-wing populist. Trump for example talks about draining the swamp, fighting the elites and putting America first. But essentially he is governing from the right, with his staff and policies exclusively taken from the Republican Party.

TFD (talk) 15:57, 21 August 2019 (UTC)

Sure -- and I am not defending Long here, or much less his association with Father Coughlin. But the Share Our Wealth speech would, even today, be pretty stunningly left-wing for American politics, as it called for a wealth tax, a universal basic income, free education/college, etc. I tend to think of him as sort of a Leftist authoritarian, but I certainly believe his is one of the many cases in which the strict binary division of U.S. politics makes little sense. Thanks for responding, and cheers! Dumuzid (talk) 16:29, 21 August 2019 (UTC)

A number of right-wing groups promoted similar policies during the depression, such as the Alberta Social Credit Party, which essentially later evolved into the right-wing of the Conservative Party of Canada. If a right wing politician told small farmers and businessmen that it's their fault they were poor and their responsibility to help themselves, it wouldn't get a lot of votes. Of course once their supporters regained ground after the war, they were more worried about losing out through redistributive programs and hence post-fascists, social creditors and Long's followers switched to more conventional right wing economic policies.

The other thing is that the implementation of their policies fell far short of promises.

TFD (talk) 20:09, 21 August 2019 (UTC)

Oh, I completely agree -- and recently moved to Alberta! But I think what that speaks to is the fluidity of our notion of political ideology. Even if someone espouses left-wing policies simply for the sake of garnering votes, they are still espousing left-wing policies. I agree that the legacy of Huey Long, and relatedly the entire "Dixiecrat" phenomenon, fed in to late 20th century conservative politics. It's just that, for me, we have to judge the words that came out of Huey Long's mouth in 1933 on their own merit (at least to some degree). Happy to agree to disagree on this one! Thanks again. Dumuzid (talk) 20:49, 21 August 2019 (UTC)

I think what confuses some people (particularly those who are not left-wing) is that they observe what policies parties across the spectrum advance, then use their findings as a standard for determining where parties should fit in the spectrum. And the standard they usually apply is what policies various parties held c. 1970, when the U.S. right was beginning to coalesce around free market capitalism, while liberals continued to support the New Deal. And then they find that the English, American and French revolutions were right wing, while Louis XVI was a socialist and George III was a liberal. (U.S. conservatives actually have argued that.) And of course the German Conservative and Nazis parties were left-wing too. But left and right of alternated support for various policies over time and even between countries.

So in Canada the Conservative Party's policies are very different from those of the Family Compact while the Liberals differ from McKenzie's Reformers, yet we would still perceive their relative position in Canadian politics as unchanged. Someone who today advocated 19th century liberal views in Canada would be considered extremely right-wing.

However, the policy changes were made in reaction to changing circumstances. Free trade in the 19th century allowed farmers - which most people were - to buy cheap manufactured goods and sell their crops without import tariffs. In the 20th century, high tariffs protected union jobs in manufacturing. The relevance of these policies was not how they fit into a Platonic ideal of left or right, but who benefited from them.

21:25, 21 August 2019 (UTC)