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It helps to look at the population in the aggregate within the construct of a Rubik’s Cube.

There is no “left” and “right” in a linear definition.

it’s a 3D construct and every individual is unique in their beliefs, values and principles...just like every other individual.

What we each have though..is a Reptilian Brain.

Thus...conservatives are more likely to draw morality from Reverence for Traditional Institutions with Moral Authority, Fairness, Tradition, Loyalty, and Sanctity...whereas Liberals/Progressies are more ap to view the world through the narrow construct of what they consider to be “Fairness or Ending Oppression.”

If that’s your whole moral construct and everything you see, read and hear comes through that lense...you end up in a place where America is unfair, unjust and inequitable..always has been and always will be.

It’s why liberals and progressives don’t get hair standing on their neck when Lee Greenwood’s God Bless the USA comes on or an old Paul Harvey piece about virtues and values and the American Ethic.

It’s helpful to read Jonathan Haidt to understand ourselves as well as others. It puts a more human spin on what comes out of people’s mouths before you judge them, lest ye be judged.

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This is the longest comment on this site I've read that says nothing. Everything in this entire statement is ambiguous book-speak and asking us to read some book by some scholar.

As someone everyone would call "on the right" its incredible tiring here a few of you college try-hards tell us how the "left" isn't what we think it is and only you know.

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Reads to me like they have something to say and backed it up. They're succinctly explaining why people on the left and right think the way they do and why they cannot understand one another. The vast majority of American voters are just people, not commies or fascists.

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Left does not mean communist necessarily, neither does right mean fascist.

It's best to understand political philosophy, and the negative roles of collectivism and authoritarianism.

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We can at least start by adding one dimension, that will make the left vs right model a bit less wrong :

"That is because the dominant strain of American liberalism is not economic socialism but political authoritarianism."

In a way similar to what happened to "conservatives" some time ago, it seems that you shouldn't name "liberals" without the quotes any more. As a reminder, liberalism is supposed to be *the opposite* of authoritarianism !

https://www.politicalcompass.org/uselection2016

Or maybe the term "libertarianism" (that this compass uses to mean the opposite of authoritarianism, rather than of leftism) is indeed better, but right-wingers have kind of stolen that one too.

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My problem with the conservative moral codes is that forgiveness and unbending good will are missing. They depend on legalities and even scrupulosity, which in my church, are sins, not virtues.

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I was looking over on the left for some forgiveness and came up empty-handed. It's apparently in short supply these days.

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Here's yet another person who confuses or conflates neo-liberals as "the left." -ugh- You guys are innumerable. Get A Damned Clue; "the left" and neo-liberals are TWO DIFFERENT GROUPS and the only one you know anything about are the neo-liberals - the left is a true mystery to the right in the USA as reflected in hundreds - soon to be thousands - of comments under Greenwald articles.

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potato, potahto...

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Please tell us, O wise one, what to call peace/justice sorts of people. In my head I call them Shakespeare catholics, because that means inspiration to me. But what do you call them inside your head?

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I would answer but I don't know quite what you mean by "peace/justice sorts of people." ... Actions matter. Saying you're for peace and justice and doing something about it are two different things...

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The Franciscan sister came here to Savannah to serve the large, majority black population. My friend, Fr. Donnelly got them a high school. One, Sr. Mary Catharine Moore got a social mission going and lived a fearless life. She walked all over, day or night, to help people. I was told if anyone harmed a hair on her head, they would be "gone" by morning. She died peacefully on her porch in the ghetto at 79.

She and others set up a Catholic Worker house for AIDs homeless. It was a lovely haven, with Mass and flowers...nothing of the puritan punishing look. It was such fun.

Did you think I was talking about a panel discussion over the net?

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Well, your one example I would say is _clearly_ a person of the left because she helped The People, not the ultra-rich. That's the easiest way to tell who's "left." And, thus, it's super easy to call out the neo-liberals who may claim left status - as I said action matters, and the neo-liberals are hypocrites, saying something that sounds good and doing something else that harms others.

If "the right" wants to claim her, too, well, yall seem to have the same problem we on the left do with badly-intentioned people trying to say they're a part of your group.

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I don't think any political ID wants to claim saintly people...they both were criticized by the 'correct' right and ignored by the rest. The Catholic church had scary infiltrators and still does....truly a challenge to step over all the pikes of muck.

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Both political parties try for the moral high ground. People forget about the christian coalition back in the early '90's where Republicans had to meet their litmus test in order to back their candidacy. And don't get it twisted that they used racial tactics to divide the country in an effort to incite rage in rural white voters to vote for them (The Southern Strategy) and surpress the black vote since the civil rights/voting rights bill was passed in 1964. The infamous Willie Horton ad was the most disgusting one that was approved by Lee Atwater who was none other than 41's campagain manager back in 1988. So both parties are complicit.

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You are so very wrong, and mostly opposite of the truth. About the only think that isn't opposite is that the those on the left in the US today have no moral code.

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Genuine liberals MUST have a strong personal morality. Immoral slob people are very severe on other people...abandoned lovers, pregnant girl friends, elderly parents. Quite ruthless! Their 'leftie' brand is for themselves, thank you very much!!!

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Again, you're talking about the neo-liberals, NOT "the left."

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The left in the US today is illiberal.

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What is your definition of "neo-liberal"?

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I'll give examples: Hillary Clinton, Nancy Pelosi, Chuck Schumer. These are people who make statements about helping working people, and pound their chests at liberal ideals of freedom and equality, but who act to support the ultra-rich and the status quo and don't do a damned thing to help The People if they can possibly help it. And yes, most of them "have no moral code."

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I can't believe anyone argues with it.

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Un, both political parties do it. The Democratic party was once for the work class until 1996, where the Clinton, who was fight for political survival after the Republicans swept into congress, adopted their dragconian ideas in order to get elected. Since then, they become corporate, lying in bed with the big banks, big tech and the other Richies. Just remember that then candidate Obama had a meeting with the big tech companies too. The best speech ever given to support the working class was Ted Kennedy's concession speech at the 1980 Democratic convention in New York, City. Go to youtube and search for it. I will blow your mind.

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so neo = faux

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On one minimum wage job in 1966 my nazi sympathizing employers had Harvey blaring from a radio all morning. It made me sick.

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I remember...virtue signalling mason of high degree. Little Christian mercy from those people.

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The reptilian brain references the part of the brain that is the most primitive, and is in control of instinctual behavior, that is, everything you do without thinking, like eating, sex, etc. It has to do with all those things we do to survive as a species. Nothing to do with morality, or higher thought processes.

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...or as my mother would say, "To hell with the 10 Commandments, this is serious." She had a great sense of humor!

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Good for her.

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She took few prisoners....thought Mother Teresa a joyless manichee back when the world adored her. Mind full of zingers and on a good day the best company!!

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My  mother was a socialist, although she didn't claim to be, but if you want to put a name to things, she was. My father's relatives, him included, defined her as a communist, or as  Clinton would say, a Russian asset. For shame that she believed that only the living world had true value. The value of the material world resided solely in the importance you were willing to give it. I don't why she married a man who put money above all else, a tyrannical, and verbally abusive man. When my father died I slipped a ten dollar bill in his pocket. He's been dead for years and I keep that image alive to remind myself how right my mother was. Fun to have a mother who is different. She let me keep every stray dog I took home.   

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Bless you...do you know the only common trait of the righteous gentile people named at Yad Vashem ...out of every possible distinction: race, religion, income, education family, sex....the only thing in common was picking up stray cats and dogs...even carrying food in the car just in case.

Probably true with genocides and purges everywhere.

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Yours is the best post I've seen on the internet in a long, long time.

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