VPT - the extreme right and fellow-travellers

[Pies4shaw]

Is VPT special (in the blue bus sense of “special”) that it is brimming over with posters with extreme right-wing views whose mental processes are so disordered that they think they hold “middle of the road” attitudes?

I ask this, of course, as an old, rich, white, heterosexual, male person who spends his days in the congenial company of almost-exclusively Liberals, most of whom he likes and none of whom share (or would even countenance) the ultra right-wing views routinely announced and approved on here.

It strikes me as beyond perverse that many on this forum view people who don’t share their bundle of extreme right tendencies as falling down some slippery slope to Stalinism.

[thesoretoothsayer]

Delete this thread.
As a self-identified "old, rich, white, heterosexual, male" you are no longer entitled to an opinion.

[KenH]

I think that maybe some of the left brigade on Nick's don't comment as much as the right brigade?
I hope that is the case because there seems to be more right leaning Nicksters's than the left.

[stui magpie]

Can you please provide some examples of what you consider these extreme right wing views are?

[Pies4shaw]

Not yours sp cofically, Stui, if that helps. You’re plainly conservative but it has always been possible to engage in conversation with you.

[stui magpie]

Thank you, I think.

I do hold some conservative views and also some liberal ones. I'm interested in examples for a frame of reference. There's been views expressed that i consider certainly right wing but nothing I would classify as extreme.

[Pies4shaw]

It wasn’t meant as a backhander, Stui. Although something weird did happen when I typed “specifically”.

[Pies4shaw]

Perhaps I might ask you what you would classify as extreme, short of invading Poland?

Where, say, is the bright dividing line between “acceptable” and “fascist”?

[stui magpie]

Now now, I asked first.

Besides, I generally have NFI about most of these labels.

1 example would be if someone said we should slow down Sudanese immigration as we're having difficulties with the young assimilating, I'd have a discussion about it.

If someone said we shouldn't let any black people into the country because they're black, that's way over the line.

[K]

You may also be interested in David's similar previous question and the replies:

http://magpies.net/nick/bb/viewtopic.php?p=1844178#1844178

[Skids]

You're the most pretentious poster on this forum.

I can't believe you're not a Melbourne supporter to be Frank.

You are so far from the real world it's not funny.
Your responses are so typical and tiresome, most don't bother with them anymore.

I must be a bigot, nazi, racist, islamaphobe, homophobe you speak of hey

[Pi]

^
Lol I thought he was talking about me

Anyone who spends their time among almost-exclusively Liberals or any one particular social group needs to get out more.....

[pietillidie]

Much of everything said should be taken with a grain of salt. If you said you liked cats, someone will say they hate them because they kill birds. This will in turn imply that you're aiding and abetting the killing of birds. And off it will run, with people forming sides despite having very little interest in the subject.

Combine this with the cathartic effect of ranting and arguing, and the need to generate clicks in other contexts, and you account for most of the content you now read everywhere. It's almost as if we're acting out a genre, the precise content of which doesn't matter.

Would people submit this content as a formal, serious statement of their views? I doubt it. We all now avoid clear, organised statements like the plague, because underneath we're nowhere near as sure as our rants imply.

As I say, I think this is the new nihilism. We test ourselves by spouting whatever, but it's a game, not a statement of serious fact, not least because no one knows what serious fact is, not to mention it's way too hard to write seriously. Trump's entire schtick is built on this; he is not afraid of saying any old crap because he knows under these rules nothing can really be taken as a lasting statement. Is he being stupid, impulsive, strategic, ironic, provocative, ingenious, legal, illegal, backward, ahead of the curve, or none of these? Take your pick; go rant about it and give him free publicity.

So, to answer your question, I don't buy most of the stronger views on here, whatever their stripe. The far right is the new fashion accessory it once accused the greens of being.

[Pies4shaw]

[Mugwump]

Of the regular posters, I think there are 7 on the right and 5 on the Left.

Swoop, David, P4S PTID and WPT. Rarely much disagreement between these posters.

Skids, Wokko, Mugwump, Stui, Jezza, Soretooth and Pi. Quite a bit of disagreement between these posters.

TP and K seem pretty apolitical. KenH is so mildly Left that he posts more or less apolitically, too. Sheriffe has turned up once or twice, launched an angry class war rocket or two, and then stormed off.

I see no evidence of what the mainstream media would consider extremism. The only incitement to,or approval of violence that I can recall, seems to come from P4S with his occasional mock-humorous references to the idea that conservatives “should be drowned at birth”, inter alia.

As for “Fascism”, well, if you have a history degree, you might want to define the term, as I doubt you understand it, f you think you see it here. I suspect you use it as a political swear word. I am trying to think of anyone here ever expressing general approval of Hitler, Mussolini, or Franco, or even Peron. I see no approval of Roman imperialism either. I would offer a partial defence of Salazar, as does about half of Portuguese society. Does that count ?