[stcredzero]

Sargon of Akkad is highly critical of the Alt-Right. He describes himself as a "classical British liberal." However, since he also criticizes the far left, the far left tars him as Alt-Right, which I find to be an authoritarian and highly dishonest tactic. Basically, it's a tactic to get everyone to shut-up and put-up through intimidation, brooking no dissent from their own side. That's not how liberals should be engaging and searching for the truth. That's basically how George W. Bush was acting when he was selling the WMD narrative.

[dragonwriter]

> He describes himself as a "classical British liberal”

“Classical liberal”, with or without “British”, is a standard self-identification for modern conservatives, especially right-libertarians; a very wide portion of the political spectrum—reaching pretty far both left and right and everywhere in between—in the modern West, especially the Anglo-American subset, has or claims roots in 18th century British liberal thought.

> However, since he also criticizes the far left, the far left tars him as Alt-Right,

Lots of people criticize the far left without being labelled Alt-Right; OTOH, he does seem to be from a space slightly more libertarian though equally far right and equally, or nearly so, xenophobic on most social axes to the Alt-Right. So there is a real, if perhaps exquisitely fine, distinction there.

[stcredzero]

That's more of that dishonest narrative/tarring. The man's not even white, IIRC. He's part middle eastern in descent. "Xenophobic" is the label used by the far left to tar anyone who believes in stricter border policies. He's also highly critical of all groups he perceives as using Identity Politics, which in present day includes both the far left and far right of the political spectrum. Both the far left and the far right target him, the far left doing it by using the "Alt-Right" mislabeling, with the far right going along with it for trolling purposes.

So there is a real, if perhaps exquisitely fine, distinction there.

In 2018, this is called an "exquisitely fine, distinction" where in years past, he would just have been called center-left.

[dragonwriter]

> The man's not even white, IIRC.

He seems to think he is, since part of his criticism of the Alt-Right was that they weren't sufficiently nice to him personally, violating the maxim that “White people are meant to be polite and respectful to one another” (he later claimed this was a criticism of them violating their own standards, but whoever the standard is attributed to his invocation of it only makes sense if he believes he is White.)

> "Xenophobic" is the label used by the far left to tar anyone who believes in stricter border policies.

That may be how some subset of the far left uses it, but it is nevertheless a word with actual meaning, that applies to Sargon, and I'm not a member of the far left.

> in years past, he would just have been called center-left.

Which years past? Maybe the 19th Century. Not anytime in living memory.

[stcredzero]

He seems to think he is

That's not how he identifies, though he doesn't think identity should be an issue and that people should be judged by the content of their character.

violating the maxim that “White people are meant to be polite and respectful to one another”

Again, trolling white supremacists by throwing their own broken beliefs (and inability to live up to even those broken ones) back in their face.

I'm not a member of the far left.

Really?

> in years past, he would just have been called center-left.

Which years past? Maybe the 19th Century. Not anytime in living memory.

In my living memory, certainly. Someone being against identity politics, for strict border controls, and being for "equality of opportunity" but opposing "equality of outcome" is a perfectly reasonable liberal position to me, and could have been claimed as such with no comment in the 80's, 90's, and 2000's. It's a dishonest far left narrative to try and label those as "conservative" or even "Alt Right."

[dang]

Would you please stop it with the ideological comments on Hacker News? After a brief respite, you've reverted back to way overdoing it. That is why we rate limited your account in the first place.

https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

[stickfigure]

$0.02

I'd never heard of this Sargon guy before and only now feel oriented after reading this thread. It's an ideological subject. Shrug.