Poll of the Day > Aside from being against the death penalty, has Zeus ever espoused a left ideal?

(+) Yeah! (+)

I know no one believes his "left leaning centrist" rhetoric, but has he made any attempt to make it believable at all?

i dont pay attention to the zeus drama on this board because its stupid as fuck but Ive never seen him claim to be left leaning. In what universe is he a lefty?

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He started insisting that he is a left leaning centrist a couple years back the first time someone said he was biased

I asked him once why he thinks that and he told me that he is a left leaning centrist because he took an online quiz and that was the result

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I think most of his political ideas are the opposite of mine since I am pro-death penalty.

I'm actually pro-death option on any jail sentence over 5 years (if you are gonna lock someone up that long, they should have the option of being put to death instead).

I'm pro abortion as well (I'm all for death in all it's forms pretty much).

I'm pro universal health care though (even though it means less deaths, I'm actually anti-suffering).
I'm pro free education as well, as long as you keep your grades up of course.

If you wanna boil it all down, i'm pro making everyone alive as happy as possible, while ensuring any new lives are supported and positive as well. I believe we should share our wealth much more evenly and ensure everyone has the best chance at happiness possible. We should focus on the people we have already here, and limit new people until the ones that exist all have decent lives/opportunities.

Finally I think we need to mostly close our borders since we can't control what happens in other parts of the world. Focus on this country first, get our crap together, and then start bringing new people (as babies, or immigrants) in after that.
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In his defense, when you're on a board with mostly left-leaning people, some of whom are extreme left-leaning, anyone who IS somewhat centrist or moderate may find themselves coming across as much more strongly right-wing solely by default.

I definitely come across more right-wing here. But I also used to be friends with a few AnCaps, and with them I basically come across like a radical left-winger. In real life, I'd say about half my friends are to the left of me, and about half are to the right of me, and that definitely colors conversations involving politics or social issues (though we generally try to avoid talking about those sorts of topics).
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I don't keep track of anybody's opinions. Most of the time I don't look at usernames.
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JOExHIGASHI posted...

I don't keep track of anybody's opinions. Most of the time I don't look at usernames.

Neither do I but I almost always know when im reading one of his posts. Been several times ive been reading a post and I stop and think "this has to be zues" look up and yeah it is.
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Torture, death penalty, that's it.
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No, he hasn't.
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mooreandrew58 posted...

JOExHIGASHI posted...

I don't keep track of anybody's opinions. Most of the time I don't look at usernames.

Neither do I but I almost always know when im reading one of his posts. Been several times ive been reading a post and I stop and think "this has to be zues" look up and yeah it is.

All this.
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Every few months one of these topics comes along and it's the same shit. People weirdly act like being against the death penalty is all that leftist of a position and pretend that it's the only thing I'm left on. Go back to one of the previous troll topics where I outlined some other positions, or acknowledge that you don't even know where the center is any more.

DirtBasedSoap posted...

i dont pay attention to the zeus drama on this board because its stupid as fuck but Ive never seen him claim to be left leaning.

Left-leaning centrist, not simply left-leaning. The modifiers are important. Left-leaning unto itself suggests leftist. While I'm a democrat in one of the most liberal states in the country, I'm not a leftist.

Mead posted...

He started insisting that he is a left leaning centrist a couple years back the first time someone said he was biased

I've mentioned being a left-leaning centrist for roughly the entire time I've regularly used the board. More importantly, you bring it up far more than I do. In fact, about the only time I bring it up is when you're trying to claim otherwise.

Mead posted...

I asked him once why he thinks that and he told me that he is a left leaning centrist because he took an online quiz and that was the result

First, I've taken a lot of online quizzes and all of them put me in the same place. At a certain point, it stops feeling like a coincidence. Two of the tests were the 8Values and the political compass test, neither of which the board has objected to in terms of results in the past.

Second, if not for independent evaluation, how else would you reliably determine your standing? I would have thought I was just centrist rather than left-leaning, but the results speak for themselves. And, in general, I either wind up in the center on a lot of issues or the more extreme stances are balanced by extreme stances on the other side.
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wolfy42 posted...

I think most of his political ideas are the opposite of mine since I am pro-death penalty.

I'm actually pro-death option on any jail sentence over 5 years (if you are gonna lock someone up that long, they should have the option of being put to death instead).

I'm pro abortion as well (I'm all for death in all it's forms pretty much).

I'm pro universal health care though (even though it means less deaths, I'm actually anti-suffering).
I'm pro free education as well, as long as you keep your grades up of course.

If you wanna boil it all down, i'm pro making everyone alive as happy as possible, while ensuring any new lives are supported and positive as well. I believe we should share our wealth much more evenly and ensure everyone has the best chance at happiness possible. We should focus on the people we have already here, and limit new people until the ones that exist all have decent lives/opportunities.

Finally I think we need to mostly close our borders since we can't control what happens in other parts of the world. Focus on this country first, get our crap together, and then start bringing new people (as babies, or immigrants) in after that.

The typical pro-death political group...

Um.... what!

Broken_Zeus posted...

Go back to one of the previous troll topics where I outlined some other positions

Care to link one of these or repeat yourself?

HarbingerofHope posted...

Broken_Zeus posted...

Go back to one of the previous troll topics where I outlined some other positions

Care to link one of these or repeat yourself?

I don't use any of the backup sites. You'd need to talk to Helly for that, assuming you aren't Helly.
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Why would I care about his political views while having none of my own?
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The hilarious thing is that Ive taken a lot of the same quizzes that zeus is talking about and I always get the same result

Left leaning centrist

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Love how wolfy just went off about himself there.

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LOL thinking left ideology is anti death penalty. Aside from the obvious baby slaughter, i mean abortion, it's really more a of a libertarian thing to think the state shouldn't be able to kill citizens. Even most liberals support the death penalty.
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Mead posted...

The hilarious thing is that Ive taken a lot of the same quizzes that zeus is talking about and I always get the same result

Left leaning centrist

That is hilarious.... since those aren't the results I remember you posting.

zebatov posted...

Love how wolfy just went off about himself there.

Yeah, wolfy, way to make a Zeus tribute topic about yourself!

wombat013 posted...

LOL thinking left ideology is anti death penalty. Aside from the obvious baby slaughter, i mean abortion, it's really more a of a libertarian thing to think the state shouldn't be able to kill citizens. Even most liberals support the death penalty.

And, tbh, most stances where I'm "right" or "left" on are really libertarian issues. The thing that Mead & co forgets is that, while I'm just barely left of center on the political compass, I'm moderately libertarian (although I recognize the need for some controls, regulations, and limited safety nets). Not so coincidentally, being against long prison sentences is *also* a libertarian stance rather than a leftist stance, since leftists love lifetime sentences whereas I'm opposed to the idea of lifetime sentences.
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That is hilarious.... since those aren't the results I remember you posting.

I mean when was the last time you remembered anything on this board as it actually occurred?

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Mead posted...

That is hilarious.... since those aren't the results I remember you posting.

I mean when was the last time you remembered anything on this board as it actually occurred?

When was the last time you the truth about anything or didn't falsely disparage anyone?
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Mead posted...

That is hilarious.... since those aren't the results I remember you posting.

I mean when was the last time you remembered anything on this board as it actually occurred?

he still thinks my whole existence, was solely around him. always besmirching my good name, calling me a troll, i say guffaw, ok?

i'm a small town boy, living in a lonely world, who the midnight train, going anywhere, ok?
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So for my commentary it needs to be framed from a simple fact. The republican party has been moving to the right, and the base of the party is quite extreme at this point. Most of us can accept this yes?

Well you must also accept that most republicans do not realize they have been radicalized. They don't realize they have been shifting to the right, they also don't realize that the democratic party was shifting to the right until Bernie and Trump really fired up the democratic base and helped us see a small kinda left wing version of the tea party in the house.

Many republicans believe themselves to be close to center, right but not radical. They don't accept the idea of a global political scale and instead they believe a political scale exists with them as near the center. It's a similar concept to believing the sun revolves around the earth. No one (well a few might) wants to admit to having extreme beliefs, because they believe they are correct, reasonable, and/or normal thus cannot be extreme.

Now the next question is how self aware Zeus is. I don't recall having seen him break character. So if we say he honestly believes what he says then it is entirely in the realm of possibility that he is one of those who rejects the idea of an objective political scale in favor of one with him as the center and he thinks he is left of center because of a few beliefs, such as the one on the death penalty this thread is about.

We all recognize that he is an extremist, no centrist is going to try and argue with people that need to stop saying "nazis" to refer to neo-nazis because nazis haven't been around since the 40's. But at the very least there is an explanation for how he could potentially believe himself to be a left leaning centrist, at least at some point. I haven't seen him say it for quite some time so I believe the jabs he frequently gets over it has helped him understand there is nothing center about his beliefs.

BlackScythe0 posted...

no centrist is going to try and argue with people that need to stop saying "nazis" to refer to neo-nazis because nazis haven't been around since the 40's.

How is pedantry about specificity extreme? We're in a time of maliciously misleading speech everywhere, it seems reasonable to request accuracy.
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Kyuubi4269 posted...

How is pedantry about specificity extreme?

Because it distracts from efforts to criticize Nazism. At best, it's clueless. At worst, it's literally Hitler.

Broken_Zeus posted...

I'm moderately libertarian

Dude, you want Prohibition back (at least morally. I believe you do acknowledge that it didn't work and therefore shouldn't be tried again). That's about as anti-Libertarian as you can get.
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Kyuubi4269 posted...

BlackScythe0 posted...

no centrist is going to try and argue with people that need to stop saying "nazis" to refer to neo-nazis because nazis haven't been around since the 40's.

How is pedantry about specificity extreme? We're in a time of maliciously misleading speech everywhere, it seems reasonable to request accuracy.

It's not reasonable. It's irrelevant, it's just attacking someone he disagrees with and it generally feels like he is attempting to defend neo-nazis every time I've seen it.

adjl posted...

Because it distracts from efforts to criticize Nazism.

Neo-nazis do have distinctions from Nazis though. They're not good, but they're not the same.

adjl posted...

At best, it's clueless. At worst, it's literally Hitler.

Literally.

BlackScythe0 posted...

It's not reasonable. It's irrelevant, it's just attacking someone he disagrees with and it generally feels like he is attempting to defend neo-nazis every time I've seen it.

It's pretty relevant as one group gassed millions of people while the other agreed with doing that.

It's the difference between a racist and a racist serial killer. While they both have the same ideals, only one is actually doing the atrocities.
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Kyuubi4269 posted...

adjl posted...

Because it distracts from efforts to criticize Nazism.

Neo-nazis do have distinctions from Nazis though. They're not good, but they're not the same.

you are arguing semantics with a guy who verbatim said (and believes) "words dont mean anything"

which is odd from a pedantic little goober like adjl i think
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Noop_Noop posted...

Kyuubi4269 posted...

adjl posted...

Because it distracts from efforts to criticize Nazism.

Neo-nazis do have distinctions from Nazis though. They're not good, but they're not the same.

you are arguing semantics with a guy who verbatim said (and believes) "words dont mean anything"

which is odd from a pedantic little goober like adjl i think

He's a postmodernist, so words mean whatever is convenient to make a disingenuous argument.
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BlackScythe0 posted...

So for my commentary it needs to be framed from a simple fact. The republican party has been moving to the right, and the base of the party is quite extreme at this point. Most of us can accept this yes?

Well you must also accept that most republicans do not realize they have been radicalized. They don't realize they have been shifting to the right, they also don't realize that the democratic party was shifting to the right until Bernie and Trump really fired up the democratic base and helped us see a small kinda left wing version of the tea party in the house.

Lol the opposite is closer to the truth. The left has become waaaaaaay more radicalized over the past decade than the right. The democrats now are absolutely nothing like what they were in say 2004 whereas Republicans are pretty much spewing the same christian rhetoric they always have been

OhhhJa posted...

Lol the opposite is closer to the truth. The left has become waaaaaaay more radicalized over the past decade than the right. The democrats now are absolutely nothing like what they were in say 2004 whereas Republicans are pretty much spewing the same christian rhetoric they always have been

Um no

the Democratic Party is actually seen as moderately conservative compared to other political parties across the world

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OhhhJa posted...

BlackScythe0 posted...

So for my commentary it needs to be framed from a simple fact. The republican party has been moving to the right, and the base of the party is quite extreme at this point. Most of us can accept this yes?

Well you must also accept that most republicans do not realize they have been radicalized. They don't realize they have been shifting to the right, they also don't realize that the democratic party was shifting to the right until Bernie and Trump really fired up the democratic base and helped us see a small kinda left wing version of the tea party in the house.

Lol the opposite is closer to the truth. The left has become waaaaaaay more radicalized over the past decade than the right. The democrats now are absolutely nothing like what they were in say 2004 whereas Republicans are pretty much spewing the same christian rhetoric they always have been

Bull shit.

I even said democrats have taken a sudden shift slightly to the left after the recent entry of young left wing politicians into the house. But that is an issue of the last few years. Not an issue of the last decade. Democrats were trending right, and being center/center-right was a criticism of Hillary. You may not have agreed for issues I discussed in the post you partially quoted, but it was a common criticism.

Republicans were radicalized with the Tea Party. They were so radical that when it came time to repeal health care they couldn't agree because the Tea Party said to every single bill "this doesn't kill enough Americans!" you have Rand Paul trying to block 9/11 spending bills because he thinks the lives of American heroes needs to come by cutting spending from other forms of health care. Someone has to die to get his vote.

That is radical. That is extreme. That is not the sort of things republicans have always been doing. That isn't even going into Trump announcing his campaign with a racist lie and running almost exclusively on racism.

yeah you guys keep conflating left/democrat and right/republican when the US doesnt really have any party to the left
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Mead posted...

OhhhJa posted...

Lol the opposite is closer to the truth. The left has become waaaaaaay more radicalized over the past decade than the right. The democrats now are absolutely nothing like what they were in say 2004 whereas Republicans are pretty much spewing the same christian rhetoric they always have been

Um no

the Democratic Party is actually seen as moderately conservative compared to other political parties across the world

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6grXCooL3-M" data-time="
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Do people actually think anyone watches random videos dropped in threads for no apparent reason?

BlackScythe0 posted...

So for my commentary it needs to be framed from a simple fact. The republican party has been moving to the right, and the base of the party is quite extreme at this point. Most of us can accept this yes?

And the Democrats have been moving to the left, something you seemingly ignore. Oh, and another problem with your commentary? I'm a Democrat.

BlackScythe0 posted...

Now the next question is how self aware Zeus is. I don't recall having seen him break character. So if we say he honestly believes what he says then it is entirely in the realm of possibility that he is one of those who rejects the idea of an objective political scale in favor of one with him as the center and he thinks he is left of center because of a few beliefs, such as the one on the death penalty this thread is about.

If you had self-awareness, you wouldn't posit a ridiculous argument predicated on glaring errors regarding my party affiliations. And, more importantly, I've listed the objective evaluation of multiple sources that made this determination, which is actually reliable unlike your entirely subjective theories and wildly inaccurate claims.

BlackScythe0 posted...

We all recognize that he is an

....which you only believe because you're so far left on the spectrum that you'd make the Swedes clutch their pearls.

BlackScythe0 posted...

no centrist is going to try and argue with people that need to stop saying "nazis" to refer to neo-nazis because nazis haven't been around since the 40's.

Anybody in the least bit concerned with factual accuracy and who understands how fucking stupid it is to falsely re-label groups would do it, regardless of where the person falls on the political scale. That's counting the fact that it elevates and glorifies Neo-Nazis by making them out to be members of the most infamous regime in modern history while simultaneously diminishing the evil of Nazis by associating them with posers. Most importantly, YOU DON'T RESTRICT ITS USAGE TO NEO-NAZIS ANYWAY! You've used the label to apply to any white supremacists and, taking it one further, many of your ideological comrades on the board have used it to refer to anybody they dislike.

adjl posted...

Kyuubi4269 posted...

How is pedantry about specificity extreme?

Because it distracts from efforts to criticize Nazism. At best, it's clueless. At worst, it's literally Hitler.

Pretending that not-Nazis are Nazis explicitly distracts from the ability to criticize Nazis. At best, it's clueless. At worst, it humanizes the Nazi party which was the most infamous evil regime in modern history and that's something you don't ever want to do... well, it's something people SHOULD never want to do.
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Does being a fan of Hamilton count as a leftist ideal?
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Broken_Zeus posted...

You've used the label to apply to any white supremacists and, taking it one further, many of your ideological comrades on the board have used it to refer to anybody they dislike.

Hey! You finally stopped accusing me of that. Good, because I'm pretty sure I've never called someone a nazi simply because I dislike them.

adjl posted...

Broken_Zeus posted...

I'm moderately libertarian

Dude, you want Prohibition back (at least morally. I believe you do acknowledge that it didn't work and therefore shouldn't be tried again). That's about as anti-Libertarian as you can get.

No, I want a system of regulations to decrease the dangers of alcohol within our society, something you SHOULD be on-board with if you pretend to hold leftist views. If you claim that you're against domestic abuse, you're going to want to stem alcohol because it's closely tied to domestic abuse. If you're against crime, you're going to want to stem alcohol because a large number of people who commit crimes are intoxicated while doing so. If you want to reduce car crashes, you're going to want to stem alcohol because a third of all car crashes are tied to alcohol. And when it comes to regulating alcohol, it's overwhelmingly been done by social progressives who, by the way, even played a heavy hand in prohibition.

And that ties into the rest of my remark, which you ignored for pretty obvious reasons:
"while I'm just barely left of center on the political compass, I'm moderately libertarian (although I recognize the need for some controls, regulations, and limited safety nets)."

BlackScythe0 posted...

Republicans were radicalized with the Tea Party. They were so radical that when it came time to repeal health care they couldn't agree because the Tea Party said to every single bill "this doesn't kill enough Americans!" you have Rand Paul trying to block 9/11 spending bills because he thinks the lives of American heroes needs to come by cutting spending from other forms of health care. Someone has to die to get his vote.

Which is historically inaccurate and ridiculously silly. The far-right and far-left became mainstream even sooner and, more importantly, the Tea Party was ultimately nowhere near the groundswell that you imagined since the Tea Party darlings have had difficulty establishing any change other than perhaps occasional obstructionism. A great case-in-point would be the fact that the Tea Party is vehemently anti-war, something that neither carried over to the mainstream party let alone to government.

https://theweek.com/articles/460079/how-tea-party-became-antiwar-movement

Otherwise Rand Paul is an anarcho-libertarian with a fringe following so your claims of the Tea Party's influence are, at best, outsize if not entirely hyperbolic.
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i find it interesting they allow blocking users from viewing your posts. while fine in practice, also means you could block the majority and talk like zeus, keeping offended parties from marking his posts, ok?

i can still see his quoted posts, so the new system of blocking feels wildly flawed, ok?
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OrangeDawn posted...

No, he hasn't.

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Zangulus posted...

Zeus is acting like a snowflake. Crying and blocking people because they ask him questions. ROFL

Dunno how he's still here. The user count can't be so important they need his 20+ accounts an talk. There are respectable republican posters but his is plain give him an inch trolling.
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BlackScythe0 posted...

Do people actually think anyone watches random videos dropped in threads for no apparent reason?

How is it random and without reason?
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Wanded posted...

How is it random and without reason?

How do you think anyone is actually gonna watch that shit

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I have a personal rule to not watch a video posted unless it's specifically stated what it is. Since videos posted as responses rarely do that, they're an automatic pass.
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Wanded posted...

BlackScythe0 posted...

Do people actually think anyone watches random videos dropped in threads for no apparent reason?

How is it random and without reason?

The content has not been given context.
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ClarkDuke posted...

i find it interesting they allow blocking users from viewing your posts. while fine in practice, also means you could block the majority and talk like zeus, keeping offended parties from marking his posts, ok?

i can still see his quoted posts, so the new system of blocking feels wildly flawed, ok?

like always, clark, your arguments are thoughtful, meaningful, selfless and beyond wise. this board is luck to have you, ok?
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Kyuubi4269 posted...

Neo-nazis do have distinctions from Nazis though. They're not good, but they're not the same.

They're not good for the same reasons, though. The primary difference between Neo-Nazis and historical Nazis is the opportunity they've had to do harm. If you want to keep that difference, you keep shutting them down like the Nazi garbage they are.

Kyuubi4269 posted...

Literally.

Yep. I would consider Hitler rising from the grave (or coming out of hiding, depending on how dead you believe he is) and using absurd pedantry to annoy people on the Internet to discourage them from discussing the evils of Nazism in an effort to allow the ideology to gain more traction to be the worst case scenario. Not the most plausible, but I struggle to think of any way to interpret these events that would be worse.

Broken_Zeus posted...

Pretending that not-Nazis are Nazis explicitly distracts from the ability to criticize Nazis.

I've asked you this before, and I don't believe you've ever given me an answer: Do you seriously believe that anyone reading a commentary on Neo-Nazis in which the "Neo-" is not explicitly included doesn't understand that the commentary is not talking about time-travelling members of the historical Nazi party?

Broken_Zeus posted...

No, I want a system of regulations to decrease the dangers of alcohol within our society, something you SHOULD be on-board with if you pretend to hold leftist views.

What, like making drunk driving a criminal offense and requiring bartenders and other liquor salespeople to refuse to sell alcohol to anyone who seems like they'll be problematically drunk? Yeah, I'm on board with that. Those also already exist, so...

Broken_Zeus posted...

And when it comes to regulating alcohol, it's overwhelmingly been done by social progressives who, by the way, even played a heavy hand in prohibition.

Why, yes, making major social changes has indeed historically tended to come from socially progressive groups. It's almost like making significant changes is the opposite of the conservative philosophy of keeping things the same. Who knew?
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adjl posted...

They're not good for the same reasons, though. The primary difference between Neo-Nazis and historical Nazis is the opportunity they've had to do harm. If you want to keep that difference, you keep shutting them down like the Nazi garbage they are.

Serial killers exist and yet I haven't heard of one case of a serial killer targeting Jews. Rather says something about their choices, rather than options.

adjl posted...

Yep. I would consider Hitler rising from the grave

Literally something that can't happen so either not literal or not sane; your pick.

adjl posted...

Do you seriously believe that anyone reading a commentary on Neo-Nazis in which the "Neo-" is not explicitly included doesn't understand that the commentary is not talking about time-travelling members of the historical Nazi party?

We don't know if they're neo-nazis until we read the commentary, and the data that allows us to infer if such a thing is true is the use of the word Nazi.

What typically is the case is the word Nazi is used to slander anybody disagreeing, the same way you consider everything basically racist. It's not a useful term because it's used so liberally.

adjl posted...

What, like making drunk driving a criminal offense and requiring bartenders and other liquor salespeople to refuse to sell alcohol to anyone who seems like they'll be problematically drunk? Yeah, I'm on board with that. Those also already exist, so...

Which is just like making unregulated border hopping illegal and requiring border guards to refuse to let anybody problematic immigrate.

adjl posted...

Why, yes, making major social changes has indeed historically tended to come from socially progressive groups. It's almost like making significant changes is the opposite of the conservative philosophy of keeping things the same. Who knew?

Are you say that changing things in general is a lefty view and not changing things in general is a right wing view? Because that goes against your premise of the right being bad because it's on the right.

In this instance, not removing border control is both good and right wing.
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