We Can Work It Out - Politics & Philosophy | Page 91 | Fab Forum | The Beatles Bible

I don’t think creating a world government would solve many problems, as it would create extreme levels of bureaucracy and would interfere with the rights of self determination that many people prioritise. I think a better approach would be different governments working together to create parallel policy so that it would be possible to travel between different countries whilst not having to obey vastly different sets of laws. 

QuarryMan said
Don’t think it’s accidental that the Washington political establishment is against proposals like free college, by the way. How else would they find people to die in their imperialist wars without a) leveraging it for a chance at joining the middle class and b) funding a constant patriotic propaganda campaign to convince citizens that murdering random Middle Eastern citizens does anything to serve them as Americans?  

To be fair, the left has helped A LOT when it comes to making the military more inclusive:

During the Vietnam war, LGBT+ people were barred from service and women had to volunteer and were only allowed limited roles, meaning that for the most part, only cis-het able bodied men served. This also meant that convincing the military that you were gay was an easy way to dodge the draft.

Nowadays, anyone who doesn’t have a disability and or a criminal record can openly serve in any combat role and even then, people with autism and or a misdemeanor/civil infraction can still get in with a waiver. On top of that, all biological men who aren’t confined to prison or a mental institution (including those who are barred from serving) must register for the draft and since we’re starting to make women do the same in other countries, it could soon mean that all free people are required to sign up.

Don’t get me wrong, discrimination of any kind is horrible but if the left put more effort on abolishing the draft instead of making the military inclusive, this wouldn’t be nearly as much of a problem as it is now.

Ron Nasty said

However, it should be noted that the study cited by @QuarryMan dates to 2011, three years after the crash with the US economy still deep in recession. There always tends to be a raise in military recruitment in times of economic hardship and high unemployment.

The number of people who joined because of high unemployment (“jobs were hard to find” in the graphic) only increased by 3% in comparison to 20% for the college thing. This can be explained by the fact that college has becoming increasingly expensive – according to Forbes, the price is increasing at 8x the rate of wages. Therefore, more people are joining the military in order to gain access to the education they wouldn’t otherwise be able to afford. 

This is just a semantics point overall, though. In either case, both factors – education benefits and escaping from poverty – reflect very badly on the military. 

Dark Overlord said

To be fair, the left has helped A LOT when it comes to making the military more inclusive

Of course it’s a positive thing that people of other identities than cis-het men are able to pursue the careers they want; I don’t think any reasonable person would deny that. But you’ll find that the actual left differs quite significantly from the neoliberal establishment (who wouldn’t be considered to count as “the left” at all in Europe and most other places) on this.

The Democratic establishment (who are typically obsessed with identity politics rather than actual policy) are perfectly fine with the draft and all the imperialist policies the USA pursues around the globe as long as there is adequate minority representation within the forces doing this. Actual progressives, on the other hand, couldn’t really care whether the person ordering a drone strike on a hospital full of children is black or gay or trans or disabled, the point is that they are ordering a drone strike on a hospital full of children. If people want to make the US military a less bigoted institution internally, then that’s fine, they can go ahead. It doesn’t change the fact that externally, it’s a brutal war machine that is responsible for an incalculable amount of human suffering worldwide, and that we should try and stop it taking advantage of people’s desires to get an education and escape poverty in order to make them its foot soldiers. 

Sorry, went on a bit of a tangent there. You’re right, the left (that’s including both sides of it per my definitions) should definitely prioritise opposition to the worst practices of the military rather than fussing over the identity of the people caught up in it. All the more reason why my US friends should support candidates who are genuinely opposed to US imperialism, rather than ones who are just interested in giving it a more inclusive face. 

Yes and no. Most modern leftists only swing socially authoritarian when they think it’s benefits to society outweigh the freedoms lost (ie mandatory voting attendance and banning single use plastic). However, we have ANTIFA who use physical violence to silence those they disagree with (mainly Neo Nazis and white supremacists) and while some leftists rightfully condemn the group for it’s use of violence, many sympathize with the group and if one of these violent ANTIFA members get political power, i’m pretty sure they’d have no problem nuking any country that doesn’t possess their progressive values.

True libertarians are a little bit of both. A great example of a textbook libertarian is Penn Jillette who had a show called Penn And Tellers Bullshit where he defends things like gay rights, drug legalization, free speech, gun rights, prostitution, anti environmentalism, and the right to eat meat. These things are all over the political spectrum and he gets criticism from both sides for his views.

Starr Shine? said
Aren’t libertarian more right wing though?

This is a common misconception; the term libertarian means anybody who is in favour of maximising personal freedom and autonomy. It was originally coined in the 1800s to describe people on the far left i.e anarchists and libertarian socialists such as Peter Kropotkin and Mikhail Bakunin, who want to abolish the state and run society through decentralised local communities.

However, during the 1950s the term was adopted by supporters of laissez-faire capitalism who believe that a free market without regulation or government intervention is the best way to maximise personal freedom, such as Ayn Rand and Friedrich von Hayek. They started using the term because they felt that the term “liberal” had been corrupted by the modern liberalism of thinkers like John Rawls which advocated for more wealth redistribution. Those who know me will know that I am extremely sceptical of this brand of libertarianism, but let’s not get into that now…

To answer your question more directly; libertarians are not necessarily right or left wing, but in the US the term is usually used to describe right-libertarians. 

Dark Overlord said

if one of these violent ANTIFA members get political power, i’m pretty sure they’d have no problem nuking any country that doesn’t possess their progressive values.

Political violence in general is a whole other topic, but Antifa’s members are generally anarchists who are opposed to the very concept of political power to begin with; no one ideologically aligned with the group would try to gain power, rather the focus is on getting rid of those power structures altogether. Also, I’m pretty sure most people on the left don’t believe in holding the citizens of a country accountable for what their government does.