So sick of left vs right, why do Americans buy into the political/media class labels?

I get so sick of watching the political coverage on the news and increasingly even on the net. Most people are not dogmatic party line folks. I know i'm certainly not.

I'm pro gun rights and pro gay marriage.

I'm pro-life and i support the seperation of church and state.

I'm pro-free markets and i oppose over influential lobbying groups and corporate welfare.

I'm concerned about the national security issue our southern border poses, i'm against being fenced in and having human beings be bio-tracked/scanned in order to move freely from one nation to another, and no i dont give a crap about your job being taken, you must not be that skilled to begin with if a poor immigrant who speaks a minority language could take it so easily, learn to adapt.

I'm still against the war in Iraq, but i don't think the Iranian situation is comparable.

I'm for lower taxes across the board and better management and accountability from those we place in charge of those tax dollars.

I believe in freedom of religion, i think your religion is a bunch of lies meant to comfort and control you.

I'm for ending the "war on drugs", ending tobacco bans, and stopping unconstitutional checkpoints, i'm smart enough to know that smoking a dried plant is less effective at pain management and disease treatment than some groups would have you believe.

Most of all i find most "politically conscience" people to be shallow, short sighted, and extremely vain/conceited.

In a day i've been called a moon bat, wing nut, extreme right, anti-american left, a statist and an anarchist.

All depends on the issue at hand, but while i feel comfortable agreeing with someone on one issue while not all, it seems to me that a lot of folks out there (and in here) are guilty of lumping all who disagree with them under a banner which they can stuff into their little "enemies" box.

I know i've been guilty of this myself in the past, but i'm making efforts to reverse it and i hope others do the same.

in short, just because i agree that the 2nd amendment protects a fundemental right, doesn't mean i want to stop Steve and Joe from getting married.

 

It's the Hegelian dialectic at play. Pit two sides against one another which are controlled by the same hidden hand, and use this to create the desired outcome. The outcome is a situation of confusion and chaos because their motto is ordo ab chao, which means order out of chaos. They want people arguing over the manufactured left/right talking points adminstered by the talking heads on TV. They know that by administering sides, most of the public is likely to join one side or the other, thinking that side best represents what they believe to be "their" views. By controlling both sides of the debate, they keep people arguing amongst themselves without looking at the big picture and realizing that partisan politics are a farce and that there is no Right wing or Left wing. It's all under the control of an international banking syndicate, which uses propaganda to polarize people, creating division, confusion and chaos. They don't want people uniting against their common enemy, so they create an illusion of us vs. them to keep people from seeing the truth. This causes people to adhere to a sport team mentality, where they blindly root for what they believe is their team, not realizing that the same people own the other team as well and are working towards the EXACT SAME OUTCOME.

In fact it is US vs. THEM, but not in the way that most people see it, where it's a battle over which establishment puppet is going to send us to our demise faster.

I am sure you know this already. I am just adding my two cents for people who think they know how the system is run but really don't have a clue.

EDIT:

Oh, and to answer your question about why Americans (or Westerners in general) buy into this idea of sides, it's because they have the need to belong to something they feel is bigger than themselves. They like to feel like they belong to something that will create "change." They like to believe they have a say in their destiny. The controllers know this, because they have studied human psychology for a very long time. Therefore they know they can exploit this tendency in people and keep them confused and thus clamorous of government to protect them or whatever.

 

I agree this left/right thing is nonsense.------------------"It's not about left and right,it's about what's right and wrong".As far as US media goes,nowadays it's nothing more than shit stirring,NOT journalism,just infotainment in between prescription drug commercials.Extremism in either direction is bad,and only represents a very small amount of people.As you said it's just labeling,similair to political correctness which is also a bunch of nonsense.-----Why do Americans buy into it you ask?Intelliegent people with common sense do not buy into it.----People that are easily influenced and/or ignorant buy into it,hook line and sinker.

 

divide in conquer. thats why.

 

Because Americans are sheep. The people who follow teh conspiracy theorist and the people who follow the government.

 

I think left and right exists, its just that some people are right wing/conservative on economics, and left wing/liberal on social issues. Its called being libertarian, unfortunately it doesn't represent a very big portion of the voting population, which is why neither the political parties or the media cater to it.

But to pretend that left/right doesn't exist is to pretend that issues don't exist, or that there aren't two sides to isssues, which is ridiculous. Its just a way of shutting down all debate that isn't about the precious conspiracy theory.

 

i love the orly owl.

 

Well, Pepik, the only "issues" that exist are the ones the media places emphasis on, which are usually nothing more than distractions. If the media doesn't discuss something, it's a non-issue to most people, thus making it some kind of "conspiracy theory" if you dare talk about it. If Wolf Blitzer doesn't talk about it, well then it must not be true.

 

O RLY, so "issues" don't even exist? There is only the conspiracy ?

 

No, I am not saying they don't exist. However, they always administer the sides to these issues without giving people even a fraction of the big picture. They always make it into some politicized left/right debate to further distract people.

But yeah, a lot of these "issues" are non-issues to me, such as talk about non-existent "manmade" global warming and the non-existent threat from Iran. Those are issues that are media created for political reasons. The general public doesn't understand the true reality of what's behind these things.

 

That really makes very little sense. "Administer the sides"? If the issues exist, the sides exist. You aren't making sense.

How can a political debate not be politicised? And we can stop calling things left and right, but there will still be two sides to an issue, whatever you call them.

You may not have noticed but you just took a side on two issues. They are not non-issues for you at all, they are very real issues that you obviously have a real view on. Its just that you don't want to be one of that "masses" that has a view, you want to be special, so you try to pretend your are above it all, even when you aren't, really.

Yes I understand that in your conspiracy theory, the most important thing isn't the view itself, its believing that your view is very elite and far beyond the capacity of the "masses" to understand. So no matter what the issue, you try to find an angle on it that lets you look down on everybody else and sneer at their ignorance.

 

You are very dense.

Whenever there is an "issue" the media deems to be important (which is whatever they tell you is important), they often have guests representing both sides of the debate on to present "their" viewpoints -- one of the "left" and one of the "right." These authorized viewpoints are then picked up by the people and parroted as being their own. If you ask anyone on the street what they think about any issue, they will often repeat what they heard the "experts" on the news saying the night before. That's how the media works and that's the purpose it serves. It serves to give you your opinions -- not to give you all the information needed to come to your own informed conclusion based on the facts.

Again, this is the Hegelian dialectic at work.

The sides I take do not often resemble the typical media-given pros/cons embraced by most people. For instance, most people who don't support the manmade global warming lie won't even talk about what's really behind this push for "green" everything. Why? Because the media won't talk about it. They will politicize it and create a phony debate so nobody sees the truth, yet it still serves to create the divisions they're looking for.

Just like most people who are against going to war with Iran won't talk about what's really behind the push to invade. The people who are against the Iraq war will say it's all about oil, when that is a very small fraction of the big picture. They simply repeat what they're told by whatever sources they think they identify with.

Now I know you will probably say the same thing could be said about myself. The difference there is that I read and research things. Not things put out on "conspiracy websites" as you will claim, but in books often written by people that are in the know. There is a reason why these things aren't covered in the media and are marginalized as "conspiracy theory." It is a term that was created by a think tank in the 60's to discredit anyone who talks about whatever the media won't by lumping them into one group and calling them tin foil hat wearers.

Regardless if people are for or against something, they take the talking points given to them via the media and embrace them as their own. This serves to keep people from questioning things for themselves. Most people do not think because they depend on the media to do all their thinking for them. That is precisely why this country is in the situation it's in.

Yes, everyone takes sides. Most people take the politically acceptable sides that they're given by the establishment. I don't take sides that are based on the contrived Left vs. Right lie promulgated by the corporate CFR-controlled media that is designed to keep the people from uniting against their common enemy.

 

Stoppit boys. Not another thread with you two fighting. Tut, tut.

For the record, I want a house made of straw.

 

typical canadian.

 

What? I've researched it.

http://oee.nrcan.gc.ca/residential/personal/home-improvement.cfm?attr=0

I watched some hippie video four years ago where Pearl Jam built a bunch of houses for Habitat for Humanity out of bales of straw, and I got psyched & did my research.

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Building-Straw-Bale-House-Construction/dp/1568985142

I needed a hobby when the X-Files series stopped running.

 

Americans beliefs are all over the place. If you buy into one ideology, you're really getting the two for one deal. The subliminal truth is that both parties play the roles of ether side of an argument, "Yes or No". If you believe in our governing system then you believe in the Political Party power and accept it.

The sad truth is that the parties have more power than the president, congress. They are in proper function for the American way of government.

kinda sucks, yeaaaaaaaa?

 

Maybe some people have their convictions and do not yield to them. Same thing happens to party lines.

Naturally, some people will be firm and totally against abortion - while others will be firm and totally for the rights to an abortion.

It is natural to have to pick a side, to pick a decision, to pick a platform, and stick to it in order to promote the kind of message that you want people to hear. And yeah, the American people as well as any people are hearing a lot of different messages coming from politicians alike. And in order to retain some sense of legitimate power a party member has to affirm their position while those politicians are purposefully pitted against one another.

It's healthy to get sick of the mud-slinging and fake labels.

 

I agree with Rat on the non issue point. While Gore comes out with new hype on Global Warming (all the time sitting on the board of a profit making carbon offset/exchange firm), and we are up in arms about the nuclear threat of Iran (while granting the Saudis the same capability), no one is talking about solving our economic woes. No one talks about closing the Enron loophole which is partially responsible for the hike in oil futures which have lead to the destabilization of our economy. The taxpayers are bailing out banks that didn't have the common sense to verify employment or income.

 

That's me, dude, you got it. My dad as well. My dad is one of Bush's biggest supporters, and my dad is sure they are going to find enough oil in the Gulf of Mexico to end all our worries. Well, he's 72, so the oil we know we have will last until the end of his life so he doesn't have anything to worry about. But I think about what happens when we run out of oil, whether its in 100 years, 200 years or 1000 years (Which I highly doubt will happen. I think we will run out in 150-200 years.) Also, my dad and I both support the war in Iraq and Afghanistan, because if we back out, they are going to come back and attack us here. Then we are all going to be in deep shit. I don't know about Bush on the Economy, but by definition I am conservative when it comes to Economics. And we all can agree Bush can be a bit of a dunderhead.

But my point is, my Dad and I are both kinda libertarian because we both believe that what you do is your business so long as no one else is affected. That means drugs should be legalized so long as the drug user does not affect other people. Abortion should also be kept legal because no one else is affected.

Spot on, mate, libertarianism. I would have voted for Ron Paul. Except for the fact that he wanted to pull out of Iraq the day after inauguration.

 

Shane

I go by what you have called yourself and what you have said about you political views.

You have claimed to be a anarchist, a post-left anarchist, but when we talked about that it became clear that you seemed closer to a right wing libertarian individualist, so much that you verged on social Darwinism.

A very interesting thread on this can be found here -
Is Anarchy ‘post-leftist
http://www.hipforums.com/newforums/showthread.php?t=170713

But I think a flavour of Shane’s views can be seen in this quote –

“Burn it all.
Tear up the constitution, give everyone a gun, let the population drop off to what nature can sustain, tear up the roads and blacktop, erase every dotted line from the map, let private property become public property become just land.
I'm sick of the pre occupation of protecting everybody from everybody and i'm even more sick of the front of protecting everybody from everybody if only you just let this group or that group gain a little more inch here and there until all you have left is an inch.
There are no good laws, no good corporations, no altruistic governments.
It's all an attack on individual autonomy.
And it comes from the left and right flanks.
I owe you nothing, i owe government nothing, i owe my neighbor nothing.
I am not responsible for the people in darfur, kosovo, france, china, n. korea, india, new orleans, new york city, boston, chicago, or anywhere else.
They are responsible for their own survival, health, food, happiness, ect.
Why are we so complacent with being dependent on everyone else?
Live your own life!
http://www.hipforums.com/newforums/showthread.php?t=169214&page=8

Basically it is the libertarian/social Darwinist idea of everyone for themselves, with every individual competing with every other individual for the resources to survive.

Reading the opening post I’m say Shane is still a right wing libertarian, there is nothing in it that doesn’t fit in with that viewpoint and a lot that does. I’d say he was very much keeping to a ideological line.

But why is he trying to hide his right wing views by claiming that they are somehow not of the right or left?

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