[_ivvf]

Except what you are saying is not really true. Most conservatives want to reduce government power, not extend it. The left, on the other hand, universally wants to extend government reach. I would recommend reading "The Authoritarian Moment" which goes into detail as to how the left are basically winning: https://www.amazon.com/Authoritarian-Moment-Weaponized-Ameri...

To quote from the book's introduction:

"There are certainly totalitarians on the political right. But statistically, they represent a fringe movement with little institutional clout. The authoritarian left, meanwhile, is ascendant in nearly every area of American life. A small number of leftists—college-educated, coastal, and uncompromising—have not just taken over the Democratic Party but our corporations, our universities, our scientific establishment, our cultural institutions. And they have used their newfound power to silence their opposition."

[godelski]

In American politics, yes. The problem is that both parties when in power have extended the power of authority and none have reduced it. It's been going on for so long that I can't take any conservative that says they vote right to decrease government seriously. It's just a talking point now. No one is going to reduce the government's powers and it's gotten us in trouble already. It's always justified as "well I need these powers because <other party> is holding the system hostage" and we've repeated this for over half a century. Authoritarians can be left or right. That's not the axis that matters.

[sreque]

I actually agree with a lot of what you are saying. Often it feels like it doesn't matter who we vote for: no president ever actually does anything about the ever-expanding big government. I wish we had someone like Senator Rand Paul, but more charismatic, who had a chance of winning the presidency. Say what you will, but that man definitely seems to want to shrink the government.

[godelski]

My problem with the right is that they do shrink the government, but also extend it in other ways. Personally I want an efficient government. I don't think that means slashing programs entirely, like getting rid of the IRS, but rather ensuring that programs don't bloat. They will tend towards that through bureaucracy. As the world becomes more complicated we will need more departments than we needed 100 years ago but we should always be ensuring that these departments don't get bogged down by too much bureaucracy. I feel that the conversation often lacks this notion and focuses on too simplistic of an approach. That's why I don't like people like Rand Paul. He's using a first order approximation which we can tell is not going to be a good enough approximation because he's using the wrong causal variables.

[ddoolin]

This is just not true: https://www.nytimes.com/2021/09/21/us/politics/trump-democra...

I don't think you're wrong but by the same token, more gov't overreach is really the Democratic platform and that is not a secret.

[godelski]

This isn't entirely true. While the Reps slash some programs they also extend others and extend the executive power. The only difference between them and the Dems is that, as you said, the Dems are open about their power grabs.

I do think we have to stop talking as if we criticize one side that it implies we align with the other. We should be criticizing all those that hold power. I believe a major problem we are facing today is that we're lacking critique of the parties we affiliate with and justify bad actions with "we need this to defeat the other party who isn't playing fair." There is no "for the greater good" in this. That's why the powers are extending in the first place.

I think saying "left" or "right" is too simplistic of a notion and that we're getting too caught up in labels. Labels are just hints, but we're not using them as hints.

[sreque]

It's definitely too simplistic, and we could argue all day over which side is worse, but I think it's hard to argue against the fact that, right now the, left control the levers of power and are the most immediate threat to American liberty and constitutional government. If we are fortunate enough to vote them down to the minority, we can address the next immediate threat?

[godelski]

I'm not sure I buy this. I think you're saying that just because the left has the Presidential power currently. But that's never been absolute power in this country (though what has been worrying is that there's the increase of this power. A centralization/consolidation if you will).

IMO the most immediate threat to the American liberty and constitutional government is that we, the people, cannot acknowledge that those in power are playing the same game regardless of the political isle that they are on. It is a show. I'm not sure who said it first but the quote

> The difference between you and me is smaller than the difference between us and our respective leaders

is an important thing to understand. That's what divide and rule preys on. Thinking that we're different when we aren't. The game can't be fixed until we recognize this.

We're in a thread talking about a whistleblower from Facebook. A whistleblower who is saying that reactionary content drives more engagement and harms the public. There's a special irony in that we're arguing over the same thing but if the government does the same thing or not. I do believe that politicians on both sides of the isle are doing the same thing we're concerned about Facebook doing. That's the biggest and most immediate threat to American liberty.

[sreque]

I can respect your viewpoint here. I know my response isn't adding much but I think it's important to recognize respect for a differing belief or opinion.

[ddoolin]

Conservative fear-mongering, recommending Ben Shapiro...am I really on HN?

[NoGravitas]

Techbros are notably far-right. The hacker ethos died out when computing became profitable. This is just a case of people's views coming to align with their material conditions.

[alentist]

> Techbros are notably far-right.

I'm sure everything looks "far-right" from your far-left perspective.

[literallyWTF]

Yeah, this is really common on this site.

[rnd0]

I left /. over this shit; the prevalence of it on HN is beginning to become worrisome.

[wrycoder]

You may not respect the writer, but what he is saying is demonstrably correct. The takeover of the Democratic party is not so well known (it happened fifty years ago), but there is a contemporary account [0]:

The election of 1972 has demonstrated that the “democratization” of the Democratic party under the guidance of such notions has only served to make it less representative of the interests and wishes of the majority of Americans than it has ever been before. For a majority party in the United States—especially if it is, as the Democrats have traditionally been, a party of change—faces a particular difficulty: that of drawing together a variety of potentially hostile racial, economic, cultural, and regional elements into a more or less united front against the vast power of corporate conservatism. In many respects the requirements of a coalition party, which must serve as a mechanism for brokerage among various interests, run counter to the plebiscitarian and individualistic currents that have long nourished both liberalism and radicalism in this country. The ethos of the New Politics in particular is hostile to the very idea of such a party. It has raised the social experience of its own affluent, educated constituency to what is, if not a world view, then at least a powerful conviction about the future of American politics. In this view, most of the “old” social problems which produced a politics of bread-and-butter self-interest are solved by the new affluence, or are well on their way to solution. The old interest groups—save perhaps for the blacks—are therefore superfluous. New forces are arising, not out of earthly needs, but out of the desires of those who have transcended such needs and are motivated only by the wish to do good.

But of course these new forces themselves constitute an interest group which differs from the “old” interest groups chiefly in its refusal to acknowledge the degree to which it hungers for political power and patronage. Unless steps can now be taken to restore the disaffected and disenfranchised elements of the Democratic party to influence, the party will remain in the control of this new interest group, and the Democrats will become the voice of an affluent minority speaking for and responsive to no one but itself.

[0] https://web.archive.org/web/20120828180557/http://www.commen...

[NoGravitas]

You're citing a right-wing (neoconservative) magazine as your source.

[wrycoder]

That doesn't mean they are incorrect. Personally, I read a wide range of sources.

[BoxOfRain]

There's entire schools of left-wing thought that are deeply anti-authoritarian, many types of anarchism for instance are deeply rooted in collectivist ideology. There's also all manner of socialist schools of thought that favour strong degrees of civil liberties. The kind of Enlightenment-era ideologies that many modern Western democracies build their very foundations on today would have been considered radical, uncompromising left-wing zealotry by the hereditary nobility and strict social elitism they attempted with various degrees of success to overthrow.

Political ideologies in general are much more varied and in my opinion much more interesting than that tiny slice of the political compass the American overton window occupies. Authoritarianism is a property that can be attached to any ideology, left or right wing. It's not really useful to view politics as a one-dimensional axis from left to right, I think at a minimum two axes are needed, a collectivist-individualist axis and an authoritarian-libertarian axis to adequately compare ideologies relative to each-other. You could add even more axes such as traditionalist-reformist, localist-globalist, and probably many more.

[sreque]

So you sound like you are probably a lot more educated about politics than I am, so hopefully I can learn something from you, but I think one problem in practice is that collectivist views always seem to end in authoritarianism. Even in the U.S., the unions that resulted from collectivism became authoritarian and corrupt in their own right, the teacher's unions of America being a prime example of corruption and authoritarianism. Similarly, the auto workers unions have been a death knell to the American auto industry.

Anarchism isn't really a valid practical stance. Once you burn down the existing system, something has to replace it, and, to my limited knowledge, that has always been a dictatorship of some kind. Maybe that's just the simplest government one can form. Similarly, collectivist organizations always seem to result in top-down totalitarian regimes when they win the government.

America worked because the original founders were willing to give up power even though the people wanted to make them kings. At the same time, they established a system that made it hard for any one person or group to quickly amass political power. It seems like the left have, for the past century, been successfully dismantling the separation of powers, starting with Woodrow Wilson.

[wrycoder]

The problem is that people who can successfully enact a revolution or who aspire to become the decision makers of the collectivist society (it's never run democratically) are not temperamentally individuals who would actually govern with a light touch.

Once people like that are in charge, it can take many generations for government to become more liberal (in the classical sense). When individual rights are lost, they are very hard to recover.

[r00fus]

Amusing you seem to have some idea of consequences of politics movements - however, so-called conservatives (and libertarians), by unseating government power (which is the only organization large enough to challenge corporate power) leaves a power vacuum for wealthy/corporations to usurp that power.

So anti-government-reguluation leads to a different flavor of fascism by corporate elites (all owned by the very wealthy).

[sreque]

I'm glad you find me amusing, but I actually agree with you that the concept of power decentralization needs to be applied to corporations as well. I definitely don't claim to have the answers to how to accomplish this, nor did I think the U.S. founders would ever imagine the power that corporations would eventually wield.

[r00fus]

Well, perhaps your considerations should take that into account. Many (not all - there are some authoritarian ones) leftists are about seeing the threat to any centralized power. As the saying goes, "power corrupts; absolute power corrupts absolutely".

Currently, the USA in an oligarchy and that power is actually vested in corporations who essentially control the government because they've infested all the regulation agencies.

The best way to fight that is with protests, strikes (there are dozens going on right now - tens of thousands at picket lines) and transparency (FOIAs and investigations to see where corporations control the government and vice-versa).

If the founders never understood the power of the uber-corporation, then they must've been blind. Dutch East India Company was a complete powerhouse in that era that controlled many countries.

[wrycoder]

It's great that there's a lot of activism.

But leftists vote Democratic (to the extent they vote for one of the two major parties), and I don't see the Democratic party doing anything whatever to rein in either big government or big business. In fact, these days the Democratic party is the party of big government and the Fortune 500, as is surely obvious.

Lots of activity, but little action forthcoming, I'm afraid.

[wrycoder]

Somehow, I don't think that the best solution is to promote a governmental and economic structure where a massive central government spends much of its energy battling massive corporations, while they both collaborate to surveil, regulate, and control the citizens.

[r00fus]

Sure, just let the corporations win. Lots of them already get 0% effective tax rate, some get billions in subsidies.

But they will always want more.

[wrycoder]

Big corporations lobby big government to get big subsidies.

I'm for small, local government and small business. And to get all the corporate money out of politics.

But the trend is always to go big, if the law allows. It seems to be very difficult to reverse that trend.

[NoGravitas]

> Similarly, collectivist organizations always seem to result in top-down totalitarian regimes when they win the government.

Substantially, that's a matter of history rather than ideology. Collectivist organizations that aren't top-down organized tend to be unsuccessful in overthrowing states and remaining in power in the face of more authoritarian opposition. The fact that the Russian revolution led to Stalinism is more survivorship bias than anything else.

You may also be underestimating the authoritarianism of right-wing institutions in US society just because they seem natural and normal to you.

[_ivvf]

I have to say, I find your "survivorship bias" argument novel, but also a bit ridiculous, considering that Karl Marx openly called for violent, bloody revolution:

“there is only one way in which the murderous death agonies of the old society and the bloody birth throes of the new society can be shortened, simplified and concentrated, and that way is revolutionary terror."

So the ideology claims violent overthrow of government is needed, but it's not the ideology's fault when the overthrow leads to a murderous totalitarian regime arguably far worse than the government it replaced? I don't know how you can seriously hold this world view.

[NoGravitas]

Violent bloody revolution is fine! It's what comes afterward that leftists disagree about. Compare, for example, Revolutionary Catalonia (unsuccessful) with Soviet Russia (lasted 70 years, never achieved communism).

[NoGravitas]

You're right that two axes are not enough. Even within the two-dimensional model, authoritarian leftists regard authoritarianism as a means to an end (Marxism-Leninism endorses the eventual withering away of the state, even if it never got around to practicing it), whereas the authoritarian right regards authoritarianism as good in and of itself (the leadership principle).

[dgb23]

Politics is much more complex, varied and full of interesting and _important_ history and philosophy than some want you to believe.

[NoGravitas]

Conservatives want to increase the power of those government institutions that are the least accountable, and are most connected to the use of violence: the police and the military. They want to reduce the power of any government institutions that would serve to provide public accountability to other power centers in US society, mainly corporations and the wealthy. Corporations and the wealthy need police: to protect their property, to enforce property relations and quell unrest. They need the military: to ensure them access to foreign resources and foreign markets. They're also willing to take advantage of any other government expenditures that benefit them (infrastructure), but generally want to see any expenditures be under their control if not eliminated.

The Left ultimately wants to abolish government power and create a stateless, classless society. Leftists differ among themselves with regard to the value of government power in achieving this, with the two opposite poles of the discussion being anarchists and Marxist-Leninists. But in general, leftists realize that they have nowhere near the organizational power to even think about those goals, and just want to improve the material conditions of working-class people, who make up the majority of society.

The Democratic Party is far from being controlled by leftists: I can count the number of actual leftists in the US House on one hand, and in the Senate on one finger. The Democratic Party is a center-right party, dedicated above all to the stability of the existing ruling class. They sometimes virtue-signal cultural values that are shared with the left (feminism, anti-racism), but largely as a means of providing an outlet for those values that is not threatening to capitalism, and which can be co-opted to protect it.

[_ivvf]

> Conservatives want to increase the power of those government institutions that are the least accountable, and are most connected to the use of violence: the police and the military.

That's just not true. Conservatives want to balance the need for police to enforce the law with the risk that the police acquire too much power. Also, conservatives recognize far more correctly than the left that we need military strength. It was the leftist call for demilitarization prior to WWII that contributed to Hitler's success. The left-leaning Jimmy Carter found his policies wholly inadequate for dealing with the Soviet Union. In contrast, it was Winston Churchill that saved Britain in WWII, and it was Ronald Reagan's expansion of military spending that bankrupted the Soviet Union. Leftists have grand ideas of defunding the police and military that simply don't work in reality.

> The Left ultimately wants to abolish government power and create a stateless, classless society

The left think they can create utopias. Again, their grandiose visions never work in reality. Where has this stateless, classless, society ever succeeded? The 20th century is littered with the bodies of those slain in pursuit of false utopias.

> The Democratic Party is far from being controlled by leftists:

Biden's administration is by far the most leftist we have seen in history. It makes Obama's administration seem almost reasonable. 6-10 trillion in projected socialist spending on socialist programs, unconstitutional eviction moratoria, authoritarian health mandates, and woke agendas with regards to race, gender, and public education, all provide a wealth of evidence that your current view on the democratic party may not be grounded in reality either, at least when it comes to what they are actually doing.

[NoGravitas]

I'll skip over the theoretical stuff, and just skip to talking about the Democrats (whomst I hate).

With Biden, you need to watch the hands, not the mouth. Biden only proposes stuff that the left likes when he knows it won't pass — and he has a couple of thumbs on the scale (Manchin and Synema) to ensure that they don't. It's a matter of optics. On the eviction moratorium, for example, Biden knew he'd be overruled, and he knows that the Senate won't allow any extension by legislation to pass; all he actually did was get the actual leftists to stop camping out on the capitol steps. The Biden administration isn't practically governing to the right of the Obama administration, which was itself right wing. Look at the notable accomplishments of the Obama administration: a massive bail-out to investment banks, blocking socialized health care while enforcing/guaranteeing the revenue streams of private insurance companies, and maintaining the Global War On Terror, in part by ramping up the drone war.

On the other hand, if you consider health mandates authoritarian...I don't know that we have any common ground for speaking. If public health isn't a legitimate government concern, then probably nothing is.

[_ivvf]

I can't say I agree with you that Biden is putting on a show just to keep his party together, but I'll leave it at that for now.

I do actually think public health is a legitimate government concern. That doesn't mean the government needs to exercise authority to the fullest extent for every health concern.

The 2010 and 2018 flu epidemics both killed far more children than COVID has killed. Where were the child vaccine mandates, school mask mandates, and school lockdowns then?

Once the COVID vaccine came out, the need for government intervention was mostly over. The authoritarianism comes from the continued over-reactions and unnecessary use of authority that lasts to this day.

[chrononaut]

> "There are certainly totalitarians on the political right. But statistically, they represent a fringe movement with little institutional clout. The authoritarian left, meanwhile, is ascendant in nearly every area of American life. A small number of leftists—college-educated, coastal, and uncompromising—have not just taken over the Democratic Party but our corporations, our universities, our scientific establishment, our cultural institutions. And they have used their newfound power to silence their opposition."

This is just an emotional quote that doesn't help reinforce your original statement:

> Most conservatives want to reduce government power, not extend it. The left, on the other hand, universally wants to extend government reach.

So I am not sure what I am supposed to conclude from your citation here; It seems a bit circular in its logic. (i.e., it assumes that "the left .. want to extend government reach", and the quote indicates that group is in positions of power in the private sector, and thus wants to extends government reach?)

[_ivvf]

The two are connected in that authoritarianism can occur in any institution of authority, not just government. The left want more centralized government power, but they are also happy to wield power and authority anywhere they can obtain it.

I didn't think I'd need to provide evidence that the left want to extend government reach, though. What do you think the 3.5 trillion dollar reconciliation bill will do? What do you think the failed "for the people" act tried to do? What do you think Biden tries to do when he has the CDC unconstitutionally ban evictions, or has OSHA force employers to vaccinate their employees against a disease with a .2% IFR?

[alasdair_]

Conservatives, in general, are strongly pro police, judges and other members of the judicial system. These people are authorities (that ultimately use violence to enforce the law). Conservatives want to increase the number and power of these authorities. Thus, many conservatives are authoritarian.

[_ivvf]

That's not what authoritarian means. It doesn't mean "pro authority". It means "of, relating to, or favoring blind submission to authority". What does the support of police or judges have to do with that?

For a society to function, it has to have officials that enforce the law. If you aren't "pro police", then you are probably an anarchist. Let me know when you find a successful example of an anarchist society.

Conservatives aren't pro police. Sane individuals grounded in reality are pro police. And sane individuals across both political aisles are also concerned with police and judicial overreach. There is a balance to be found here.

[swearwolf]

Given the right’s decades long push to invalidate a woman’s right to obtain an abortion, I find it pretty hard to accept the idea that most conservatives aren’t authoritarian.

[_ivvf]

Left's perspective: women have a right to abort their unborn children.

Right's perspective: unborn children have a right to life and protection of the law.

Both sides are arguing a moral argument. Do women have a right to abort their babies? They certainly haven't had this right throughout the entirety of human civilization. Do unborn children deserve the protection of the law? Again, this wasn't really a major issue because abortions as a medical procedure didn't really exist until recently.

But trying to claim that conservatives are being authoritarian is where I think you are wrong. It's no more authoritarian to them than it is to enforce that you can't murder people outside the womb.

[mcguire]

"Except what you are saying is not really true. Most conservatives want to reduce government power, not extend it. The left, on the other hand, universally wants to extend government reach."

Well, except for abortion. And official support for Christianity, in various kinds. And, of course, the military, the biggest part of big government and big government power. And keeping the poors and minorities in their places. And conversely, the rich in their place.

But yeah, they'd want to get rid of Social Security, Medicare, the Postal Service, the EPA, OSHA, and all that froo-fraw that gets in the way of true Americans.

("But, but, but, no true conservative..." Don't go there. Trust me.)

"A small number of leftists—college-educated, coastal, and uncompromising—have not just taken over the Democratic Party but our corporations, our universities, our scientific establishment, our cultural institutions. And they have used their newfound power to silence their opposition."

I'm just going to leave that one lay there.

No, I'm not.

Darn those leftists with their college education and science and their book learnin' and their economic productivity! They've squashed anyone who disagrees with them, oppressing us right-thinking, red-blooded Americans past the point of tolerance! Why, we've had to gerrymander the hell out of the place to keep them from crawling in and hiding in the pantries!

[_ivvf]

> Well, except for abortion

The right frame anti-abortion as pro-life. Do you consider murder laws authoritarian? Pro- and anti-abortion arguments are both grounded in morality, but claiming one is more authoritarian than the other is showing willful ignorance as to what the right believes.

> And official support for Christianity.

There is practically zero scientific evidence backing the transgender movement. Or the world-view that western civilization is systemically-racist. Or the left's views on sexual norms and marriage. Yet these and other woke ideologies are taught in public schools with support from the Biden administration and national teacher's unions. Wokeness is a terrible state religion, much worse than Christianity ever was.

> And, of course, the military, the biggest part of big government and big government power.

Wanting a strong military does is not the same as wanting authoritarian government that controls every aspect of our lives. You can have a minimal government with a large military, or an authoritarian government with a small military.

> And keeping the poors and minorities in their places.

The left wish they were the righteous ones helping the poor and minorities. I'd suggest reading the first essay in "Black Rednecks and White Liberals" by Thomas Sowell. He argues strongly that the "white saviours" that are liberals have made the plight of minorities far worse than had they never intervened. As Sowell often emphasizes, results matter more than good intentions.

> And conversely, the rich in their place.

Biden's spending spree and proposed tax increases will hurt the middle class the most. Socialism and communism are the great equalizers; they eventually make everyone poor except a few elite that are connected to the government.

> But yeah, they'd want to get rid of Social Security, Medicare, the Postal Service, the EPA, OSHA, and all that froo-fraw that gets in the way of true Americans.

I don't even know how to address this straw man argument.

> Darn those leftists with their college education and science and their book learnin' and their economic productivity!

Thomas Sowell calls you folks the "intelligenstia". I suggest you read "Intellectuals and Society". The arrogance of America's ruling oligarchy and intellectual elite will be a major contributor to our country's destruction or downfall.

[mcguire]

You wrote, "Most conservatives want to reduce government power, not extend it." Note "government power", not "authoritarianism". Those are two different things, something you seem to understand with "You can have a minimal government with a large military, or an authoritarian government with a small military." However, a large military is almost the definition of "government power".

I would like to note that there is zero scientific evidence that "Wokeness is a terrible state religion, much worse than Christianity ever was." Also, I'm not a Thomas Sowell disciple. I will cheerfully accept the charge of "intelligenstia" (When did being educated and intelligent become a bad thing?) although I note that Thomas Sowell is more of an intelligentsia than I am.

Biden's tax plan: https://taxfoundation.org/american-families-plan/ (Are the top 5% of earners "middle class"?)

Social Security and Medicare: https://www.forbes.com/sites/teresaghilarducci/2018/11/02/re...

"The Republican Party has always been associated with opposition to Social Security...." Oh, hell, just read it---it has the whole history. (The paragraph about Senator McConnell is likely referring to https://www.latimes.com/business/hiltzik/la-fi-hiltzik-mccon..., by the way.)

Postal Service: https://www.epi.org/publication/the-war-against-the-postal-s...

"President Trump’s push to privatize the Postal Service and his party’s antipathy toward government partly explain Republicans’ reluctance to provide the same pandemic relief to the Postal Service as it has to airlines and other private companies facing a similar collapse in demand. Privatization is a long-standing goal of conservative think tanks and corporations that stand to gain from weakening or dismantling the Postal Service."

EPA: https://www.theguardian.com/environment/climate-consensus-97...

Oh, c'mon, who hasn't heard more than they strictly need to in order to know that conservatives don't like regulations, even necessary ones?

"As George W. Bush’s former EPA administrator Christine Todd Whitman wrote [...],

"'If his actions continue in the same direction, during Pruitt’s term at the EPA the environment will be threatened instead of protected, and human health endangered instead of preserved, all with no long-term benefit to the economy.'"

OSHA: https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/workplace/osh...

Destroying these and similar government services would, indeed, reduce government power. They're also fairly popular among voters, but that shouldn't stop anyone.

[_ivvf]

I think we are arguing using a different definition of "big" government. If a government has a large army but is not authorized to use it to do whatever it wants, and there are sufficient checks and balances in place to prevent military abuse, the government is not "big" in my eyes. Does that make sense to you?

I don't think there's much scientific evidence that any religion is good or bad. The point is that wokeness is a religion, it is being pushed in schools by the left, and in my opinion it is far worse than Christianity.

There is plenty of evidence Biden's tax plan will impact the middle class more than the rich. Historically when taxes are raised businesses move wealth out of the country and prices rise, and the government even ends up collecting less taxes than before. This happened during the Obama administration and Obama even admitted he would rather raise taxes even if it meant less tax revenue.

Conservatives aren't necessarily against the idea of things like social security; they just question whether government is the best organization to provide these services. It can easily be argued that the government botched social security big time, for instance.

EPA was started by Nixon, a conservative president. Just because we want small government doesn't mean we necessarily want all of government shut down.