(02-11-2019, 09:42 AM)MalabarJag Wrote:

(02-10-2019, 11:01 PM)TJBender Wrote: Some posters wouldn't surprise me with a simple shot at my education. You're not one of them. I'm a little disappointed, actually.

Political theory is generally agreed upon as a horseshoe spectrum. You would be correct in saying that where certain ideologies fall on that horseshoe spectrum, and you'd be right to point out that the most common version of it these days puts liberalism as moderate and conservatism as somewhat more extreme. I'd disagree with the chart pretty strongly there. If anything, classical conservatism is more moderate than classical liberalism, but what we have in our government right now doesn't resemble either of those. I'd say that what we have right now is a left that wants to pass itself off as democratic socialists and a right that wants to pretend it isn't trying to form a theocracy. The actual state of our government most closely resembles a corporatist state. If Verizon wants something done, they just make a few phone calls and pass out a few bucks and now their lawyer is running the FCC. If TurboTax wants to make sure everyone's stuck paying them $60 a year for the privilege of paying the government, they make a few phone calls and a few campaign donations, and the bill never makes it out of committee.

What's funny is that corporatism is generally defined as being somewhere along the far right side of the horseshoe, closing in on the extreme because of how theoretically easy it would be for a corporate-controlled government to take away rights in the name of sales. Democrats are just as complicit here, but you'd be hard pressed to find anyone in this country who would call the Democratic Party far right. They're not. They've just shifted in actuality to a position on the horseshoe where they start to mirror their friends across the aisle. And can you really tell me, with a straight face, that our government isn't owned by corporations?

If 20 years of studying political theory failed to teach you that Fascism is a left wing philosophy that was the basis for the Progressive movement in the US then you need a 21st year.

As far as corporatism, that would not be a problem if government had not co-opted so much power from the people. A government that can't create regulations that stifle competition is of no use to corporations. Corporatism is just an offspring of statism.

As far as it goes, conservatism and progressivism are not points on the State-Anarchy line but swaths. But there is nothing in progressivism that reaches close to the middle, much less the anarchy side of the line. Progressivism requires Statism. Some versions of conservatism also require a degree of Statism.

As far as political parties, both fall on the Statist side of the line as Pirkster claimed. Some Republicans are even Progressives. There are a few conservative Republicans who might cross over to the other side (Rand Paul is a good example) but not enough to stop the slow creep of the US government towards more Statism.