When I was younger I considered left and right as just two sides of a coin and I liked some ideas from both sides. As I've grown older I see more of the contrast between the two more in the light of right and wrong instead of right and left. One obvious difference is that leftists do behave as if they're in a cult, as you say. The conservative tends to be an individualist and to support others' individuality. It's not an absolute, but the left is more of a mass movement, sometimes like the audience at a hanging.
There are many "religions" afoot in the world now--Environmentalism, Progressivism, Evolution, etc. Rush Limbaugh during his lifetime on the air encouraged the misuse of the term "Liberal", and that has led to a great deal of confusion in people's minds and allowed the Progressives and the Leftists to disguise themselves. Liberals are open-minded and well-educated in many things, while Leftists and Progressives are closed-minded and agenda-driven. L and P usually think of themselves as the smart ones, and those who disagree with them as ignorant clods. You can see that reflected in the comments on this forum as well as in the MSM. As you have pointed out, many "Intelligent Leftists" know kittle or nothing about history, geography, or real philosophy and logic.
Agreed, and they don't even notice, or simply follow along, when the people they turn to in lieu of their brain contradict themselves from one week to the next, or are caught in lies.
Here's how I see the world, for better or for worse: About 30 years ago I read "Leftism Revisited: From De Sade and Marx, to Hitler and Pol Pot." It answered a lot of confusing questions about ideologies. And I've read numerous similar books and articles since. I have probably refined my views (somewhat) since then, but I think the book laid a good foundation. The above book is a bit heady (as I recall) but a relatively quick read was written by Ann Coulter in 2011 (a NYT bestseller) entitled: Demonic: How the Liberal Mob is Endangering America. She absolutely nailed everything that happened here in 2020, nine years before it happened, with tons of footnotes and references to back up her points. I see the world as tyranny vs. liberty. Government vs. the people. I just want the government to leave me alone. They should protect the borders, catch and punish common criminals, enforce contract law, and not much else. Beyond that I view government as a parasite on an otherwise free, peaceful people. I hold little in common with modern conservatism. It (and the GOP) to me are just socialists-lite. "Hey, we wanna be socialists too, just not as fast as you guys!" Everything moves to the left, sometimes slowly, sometimes quickly -- as in the past 18 months. The GOP is actually helping them. Some of the red governors are as bad as the blue governors. So, I'm back to the government (both political parties and all the bureaucracies) vs. the people. They are leftists, always expanding government and infringing on our liberties. To them (and Marx, Lenin, etc. -- their mentors) given enough power, they can create Utopia. But it always ends up with mass murder. The slogan of the French Revolution was "Liberty! Equality!" but they are diametrically opposed to each other. People are not equal, and the only way you can (attempt to) make them so is with the use of force. So, with force, there is no liberty. I see today's movers and shakers as true leftists. What we call "liberals" is really a misnomer. The American Founders were true (classical) liberals. The term (IMO) was hijacked by the left to make them sound harmless and compassionate. Today's liberals are really the "useful idiots" as I mentioned previously -- supporting evil but not knowing it. Every liberal I know falls into this category. I am totally on board with most of the Founders and the Constitution as it was intended. That's my story and I'm sticking to it! Too old to change now.
Keep from spreading Covid by getting your vaccine!! Yep. That’s what (in the name of Biden) Jen Psaki has been saying. She now has CV whichever one she has. Says she got it from a family member. Family members are vaccinated. She’s was vaccinated. She’s in quarantine. If the jab keeps everyone else safe, why is she in quarantine? She lied, again. Biden lied, again. Either she wasn’t vaccinated or as we already know, the jab doesn’t stop the jabbee from spreading the disease nor the crap she’s been spreading to the public via microphone and the media.
Reading through this thread makes me extremely sad. Personally, I can see both the Right and the Left promoting the same dangerous behaviors. Each side portrays the other as 'demonic,' or 'mentally ill.' Each side seems to revel in offending the beliefs and sensibilities of the other. Both engage in 'cultish' behavior, and read history in a way that confirms their own particular bias. As I see it, the deadly problem with politicians on both sides is that instead of governing for the good of the people, they all focus entirely on blocking and undoing whatever laws and programs their 'enemies' enacted a few years before, even when undoing those things might be ultimately harmful to all. While the Right is robotically eager to tear down what little legitimate government remains, and the Left scatters itself into fringe agendas that only add to the shouting, the 1% look down on the chaos and cackle. The antichrist(s) who bring in a one world 'order' won't be demonic, they'll be plain old corporate psychopaths, happy to hand out the 'soma' and VR glasses to everyone at a profit.
It is the same as it was when over 4000 years ago the preacher said, “There is nothing new under the sun”, and, “all is vanity”.
I don't consider myself as right or left and neither deserves capitalizing, I take exception to the 'robotically' in your description. Also, we're looking at a segment of sociopaths making up much less than 1% (,1%, .01%?. less?) Imho, the left is radicalizing itself while the right remains on firmer traditional ground. Good observations, though.
Yes, it has always been thus. Except that now we've got social media to amplify each individual, personal opinion into mobs screaming for war.
Good morning, Dwight! Sorry about the 'robotic' thing, maybe 'automatic' would have been a better choice of words. --- I capitalize Right and Left in order to emphasize the extreme polarization we're experiencing recently, thanks in large part to the anger-rewarding algorithms of social media. It's pretty clear that the general population, given any topic or issue, will split nearly fifty-fifty on it, and immediately begin to demonize The Other Side. In so doing, each separate near-half of individuals will accuse the other near-half of 'evil' or 'stupid' behavior, and will not or cannot see the ways in which their own behavior, if objectively viewed, is equally 'evil' or 'stupid'. The Right/Left, at the furthest opposite reaches of the Right/Left Political Spectrum, are virtually identical their literal inability to view their own behavior objectively. This is an inherent feature of Human Nature, with no remedy or cure. It can't be fixed, but can definitely be made much, much worse. The tragic thing is that this inherent feature of Human Nature enables the 1% of Psychopaths (defined here as 'those born without empathy or compassion, who are ruthless in their pursuit of personal power and wealth') to coldly manipulate the general population for their own gain. If that 'gain' requires near-fifty percent of the general population to despise and seek to destroy the 'opposing' near-fifty percent, that's all part of 'doing business'. Psychopaths just don't care! There's no solution to this, and no point arguing about who's 'worse', the Right or the Left. The Right and the Left are basically mirror images of each other in their anger and intolerance and hate. The Right calls out the Left for being cult-like, and adamantly refuses to recognize how cult-like segments of its own membership are, and the Left does the same, in its own way. Both equally blind to the reality!
Good morning again! (-: At first I didn't notice that you'd posted your responses to my post within the quote of my post... I see what you're saying as regards individuals' differing interpretations of the same issues, which is actually the point I was trying to make. How weird is it that ten people can look at the same news source and have ten entirely different opinions about it. Or look at ten news sources and have a hundred opinions! It seems to me that there's a very real Spectrum of innate human tendencies, with individuals falling more or less evenly across the full range from one end to the other, with the result that near-fifty percent of people find themselves in direct opposition to the other near-fifty percent. I don't see how this could have been 'engineered,' since it's pretty much universally apparent across all topics. It seems like a naturally-occurring thing, though not totally deterministic, since people can and do move around on the Spectrum as they go through life. The 1% of clinical psychopaths that are born into the general population seem to me to correspond to the 'top 1%' of persons or corporate entities that control most of the planet's wealth and power, rather than to elected politicians. Looks as though politicians could be seen as among the 4% of sociopaths who are born --- and/or conditioned --- to lack empathy, and who often tag along after the psychopaths, who tend to be more intelligent and ruthless and successful than their sociopathic (politician) followers. Sorry to keep going like this! But I find the whole thing fascinating, and also terrifying, since it really does look as though humanity --- by way of its wildly-diverse 'brain-wiring' --- is doomed to self-destruct at some point, sooner probably than later. 'Democracy', with its basis in finding 'consensus', seems like an obvious impossibility, and destined to crash going forward. Sad thing, but most likely inevitable. ):