Name Someone From "The Other Side" Whom You Admire

[Trotsky]

He didn't like writing for a small audience in an underground newspaper.

I dunno, the Jacobins were pretty authoritarian and Rousseau is as well.[/QUOTE]

I specified "anarchists and pre-Lenin Marxists."

The Jacobins and Rousseau were pre-Marx communists. But, yeah, you're absolutely right that Robespiere and co were authoritarian in both practice (as is typical) and in philosophy (which is less so).

 

[Thycidides]

Its kind of depressing that the only leftists that got power were kind of ass holes with it. No one like Rosa Luxembourg actually becomes leader of a nation.

Actually I just remembered Josep Tito!

 

[jimbob27]

Obviously Saddam Hussein was a terrible man, but his tache and fedora game was on point.

 

[AgonyandIrony]

Ron Paul's staunch isolationism is admirable. I'm also a big fan of Gavin, the dude is a comedian and an actor and you gotta admire the way he hustles his fanbase.

Also his debate style is off the charts good.

 

[Trotsky]

Its kind of depressing that the only leftists that got power were kind of ass holes with it. No one like Rosa Luxembourg actually becomes leader of a nation.

Actually I just remembered Josep Tito!

I think that Lenin and Trotsky were good people and good statesmen, but they certainly weren't moral or ideological purists. I think both, Trotsky certainly, would have either deconstructed the Russian bureaucracy and reigned in the violence of the State, or at the very least quickly leveraged them into external revolution. Certainly, neither would have built the inwardly brutal Socialism in One State.

Of course, Stalin and Mao can fuck off.

 

[Higus]

I have a lot of respect for Charlie Baker, Republican governor of MA, although he'd be considered a far left liberal in any other state.

George Romney, Mitt's father, is someone I respect as well. When people say things like the President should run the country like a business, they should use Romney as an example instead of Trump.

 

[Billy no mates]

Peter Tatchel initially I just couldn't stand his strident right on insistent style of activism , put I couldn't help but admire the way he took on Mugabe and his thugs and the way he spoke for freedom of speech at the Oxford Union .

 

[Daverisimo]

I like you. You should stick around. Matter of fact, whatchu say we go out to dinner, have some chicken, maybe some sex?

 

[Scheme]

Trump.

I'm liberal, and I HATE how most liberals (both politicians and civilians) act so spineless. Compare someone like John Boehner to Harry Reid, who's withering away. And compare the stereotypical conservative (tough, independent, hard working) to a stereotypical liberal (SJW, girly, metrosexual).

Trump is hilarious, confrontational, and tough. I disagree with him policy-wise A LOT, but I wish liberals acted like him.

Imagine Bernie Sanders with the toughness of Trump. Unbeatable.

Bernie Sanders with the toughness of Trump? Isn't that essentially Mao?

 

[Mondo Freaks]

Roy Moore.

Preys on young girls and gets tons of money for it.

 

[trident]

I dont even admire anyone on "my side" let alone the brainwashed flock on the otherside of the national schism.

 

[Thycidides]

I think that Lenin and Trotsky were good people and good statesmen, but they certainly weren't moral or ideological purists. I think both, Trotsky certainly, would have either deconstructed the Russian bureaucracy and reigned in the violence of the State, or at the very least quickly leveraged them into external revolution. Certainly, neither would have built the inwardly brutal Socialism in One State.

Of course, Stalin and Mao can fuck off.

I dunno, Lenin did create the Cheka and Trotsky was a harsh disciplinarian when he was in command of the Red Army. Most of what I read by Trostky is actually pretty brutal , he advocated the Kulaks to wiped out and such.

I don't see how either allows for elections or multiparty democracy... they might have adapted something like Yugoslavian federalism to the USSR but I don't think that is what someone like Emma Goldman wanted or true left libertarians want.

 

[Juventud]

Alex Jones for busting into Bohemian Grove. Best thing he ever did.

Ted Nugent for writing Stranglehold. Dazed & Confused aw yeah.

 

[peytonlucy]

Jimmy Carter. The work of The Carter Center in Atlanta, associated with Emory University, is worthy of great praise. You can get the annual report online. Great American, so-so President.

 

[TheLastEmperorReurns]

Geopolitically: John McCain (US imperialism and interventionism are issues I feel most strongly about and he stands behind the very policies that I believe make the world a much worse place)

Politically: Ben Shapiro (agree with his stance against the far left SJW brigade but disagree with his views on guns), Naom Chomsky (strongly disagree with his socioeconomic views)

 

[Deleted member 457759]

1) My ideology is simple.

Government should be efficient in how it manages our money. It should spend money in a fashion that maximizes the ROI for those things I consider important to our ability to remain the premier nation in the world. Government has a responsibility to make sure those things that allow it's citizens to most effectively compete on the global stage are developing in the most effective and efficient way possible - this means education, health, military, food, shelter in no particular order.

I am socially liberal, "liberal" in the sense that government should stay out of society's way when it comes to shaping what is/isn't socially acceptable. The less regulation and interference in our private lives the better.

Fiscally, a balanced budget should always be our goal. Not always achievable but it should be an overarching principle for decision making.

2-3) I can't name anyone diametrically opposed to my position because I think elements of it are attractive across the entire population.

4) Read my posts. Seriously though, read everything across all ideological spectrums. Read history - personally, Rome is insightful but so is the era of democratic revolution in Europe and the Americas in the 19th Century. Books on African colonialism and Asian communist regimes. Read religious texts because morality is important, I'm very slowly working through the Bhagavad Gita. They aren't the only source of moral teachings but where they overlap is probably closest to some sense of a universal truth.

Seriously, read everything...even shitty posters.

Just curious, are you pro or anti hate speech laws? I tend to be anti "hate" speech as it's often used as a club to beat back unpopular speech and sunlight is the best disinfectant. If you're a racist asshole let everyone know there are already societal penalties for that. Also, if they're calling for physical violence against certain groups there are already laws to cover that.

 

[7437]

Mueller is a republican so...... Him.

 

[SexyMahnaz]

Thanks for posting that OP.

 

[panamaican]

Just curious, are you pro or anti hate speech laws? I tend to be anti "hate" speech as it's often used as a club to beat back unpopular speech and sunlight is the best disinfectant. If you're a racist asshole let everyone know there are already societal penalties for that. Also, if they're calling for physical violence against certain groups there are already laws to cover that.

That entirely depends on how we're defining hate speech laws. The usual standards of inciting violence and such remain but with an understanding that certain language is more likely to incite violence in different people then "hate" speech laws can be perfectly natural within our existing framework if they act as a modifier from a sentencing perspective.

If we're talking about penalizing language simply because it's based on hate, that I can't support.

To throw together an example - Random person says "I'm going to kill all the [insert racial epithet] in this room." Well in a room full of people who don't match that epithet, the chance that the language is going to incite violence or be interpreted as actionable is different from a room where some of the people match that epithet.

I picked an extremely easy to determine example but the principles would remain the same as the examples become more and more nebulous, the difficulty of proving the crime becomes more difficult.

So, let's take something like cross burning or swastikas. Burning a cross is more likely to be perceived as "fighting words" to someone deeply attached to the Civil Rights Movement than to someone who has no interest or knowledge thereof. The act of burning a cross isn't intrinsically speech that leads to violence....except to a specific portion of the population. The issue then becomes one of prosecuting the issue where the defendant could allege that the victims shouldn't have felt threatened because someone else would not have felt the same. There's a balance there that has to maintained. Again, cross burning is an easy example in this country because it has a well documented historical implication. But you take something like "Pepe the Frog" - there's no well documented historical context. So, stretching that to be covered by "hate" speech is, imho, overstepping the point of those types of laws.

So, again, finding a balance is extremely tricky and is going to come down to whether we're targeting speech because it's hateful (legal overstep) or we're recognizing that fighting words type of speech can be different when we're discussing hate based discourse (legal clarity).

 

[JudoThrowFiasco]

Bill Clinton for his economic conservativism and Ash Carter for his genius and willingness not to underestimate forigen threats.