[Hong Wu]

If you read the unibomber's manifesto (not PC, I know) he suggests (if I try to condense it down to a couple sentences) that extreme liberals possess deep seated feelings of inadequacy and hostility but that their "oversocialization" prevents them from directly expressing these feelings, so that they will instead express them in the only socially acceptable way they can think of; namely, to hold everyone else to an impossibly high version of their societies' own standards. These high standards may be impossible to attain, or destructive to adhere to but since their goal is to satisfy their hostility and ameliorate feelings of inadequacy, that is fine by them. Attempts to cope with feelings of inadequacy and suppression of their real selves also generates distracting psychological mechanisms, such as baseless arrogance, hedonism, sadism and an attempt to generate new identities (gender theories, identifying according to a sexual deviance, etc.). Finally, liberal behaviors such as protesting by trying to get hit by cars passing by are also a side effect of their feelings of inadequacy and hostility bleeding into masochism and the guilt-tripping of other people.

One of the things that strikes me about this theory is how the same argument could explain the psychology of radical Muslim suicide bombers. They, too, suffer from a mixture of malice and self-loathing. While the western liberal can get away with being an extreme form of western values, thereby semi-satisfying his inner demons, a Muslim with the same issues would theoretically become an extreme version of Muslim values. From there comes his desire to kill everyone who isn't a Muslim, the suicide bombers (an Islamic version of blocking the street, hoping someone hits you with their car) and this even explains the reason that radical leftists sympathize with radical Muslims, and why ISIS tries to recruit from Western liberals. Despite ostensibly being opposites of each other, they mutually recognize each other as being oversocialized hostile people who found an out by being extreme versions of their own people's values.

The suicide bomber and the person who lies down in the middle of the street are both expressing their inferiority complex. The radical Muslim and the extreme liberal are both "oversocialized" hostile people.

Finally, one of the points where I personally disagree with the unibomber (besides the obvious) is that I have little sympathy for people who feel a need to camouflague their anger in a socially acceptable way. It is indeed hard to find a way to make yourself feel adequate in a world with no pressing yet easily solved problems but hurting other people as a result of those feelings about yourself isn't an acceptable answer.

[stephen50right]

I have no interest in analyzing the Unibomber's rambling, insanity oriented treatise. However YOUR premise is interesting.

My take on why leftists and radical Muslims align with each other is their common hatred of Christianity and Judaism.

Leftists in America particularly hate that our Founding Fathers were mostly Christians and believed strongly in God. Leftists when they are being honest, would admit that they wish to tear up our Constitution and write their own. Radical Muslims wish to simply take us over completely with Sharia Law.

My guess is that both groups figure they will work together to try their radical best to get rid of America as we now know it, and then sort out the spoils among themselves. In their warped demented minds, I can see them in the same room saying let's work together to take over America, and you can have the East, and we'll take the West...something like that.

Both of these groups are inherently dangerous to the continued freedom and liberty of all Americans.

God bless America!

[Decky]

The left hates everyone the right, ISIS are more or less identical to US republicans (they love religion, they love traditional family values, they hate women, they hate gays, they think slavery is a good thing etc).

No one on the left likes ISIS, they are everything the left opposes. Why would we support an organisation that takes all of its orders from the white house?

[The Immortal Goon]

My take on why leftists and radical Muslims align with each other is their common hatred of Christianity and Judaism.

Your take on something fictional you imagine is very interesting.

Lefitsts and Islam:

In this respect you are confronted with a task which has not previously confronted the Communists of the world: relying upon the general theory and practice of communism, you must adapt yourselves to specific conditions such as do not exist in the European countries; you must be able to apply that theory and practice to conditions in which the bulk of the population are peasants, and in which the task is to wage a struggle against medieval survivals and not against capitalism. That is a difficult and specific task, but a very thankful one, because masses that have taken no part in the struggle up to now are being drawn into it, and also because the organisation of communist cells in the East gives you an opportunity to maintain the closest contact with the Third International. You must find specific forms for this alliance of the foremost proletarians of the world with the labouring and exploited masses of the East whose conditions are in many cases medieval. We have accomplished on a small scale in our country what you will do on a big scale and in big countries.

However, it is our duty to tell this congress: what Kemal’s government is now doing in Turkey, supporting the power of the Sultans, you ought not to do, even if this line be dictated by religious considerations. You must go forward and not let yourselves be dragged back. We think that the day of the Sultans is over, that you should not put up with autocracy. You should dispel and destroy faith in the Sultan, and establish genuine Soviets. The Russian peasants also had great faith in the Tsar. When, however, a real people’s revolution flared up, hardly a trace of this faith in the Tsar was left. It will be the same in Turkey and in the whole East when a real earthy peasants’ revolution flares up. Then the people will very quickly get rid of their faith in the Sultan and in their masters.

The East is in a special situation, in its psychological, cultural, economic and religious aspects as in its social forms and the forms of its everyday life, and these peculiarities have got to be reckoned with.

The Communists consider it necessary, in order to get rid of all misfortunes, to create a classless society, and to this end they declare relentless war against all the bourgeois and privileged elements. The women Communists of the East have an even harder battle to wage because, in addition, they have to fight against the despotism of their menfolk. If you, men of the East, continue now, as in the past, to be indifferent to the fate of women, you can be sure that our countries will perish, and you and us together with them: the alternative is for us to begin, together with all the oppressed, a bloody life-and-death struggle to win our rights by force.

Afghanistan when under the Soviet sphere of influence:











Secular. Democratic. Equality of the sexes.

---

Of course, that was a century long policy by the leftists. The right couldn't let that stand.

Initially it was the British, the French, and to a lesser extent the Americans that were forming Islamic autocracies to counter the Soviet message of secularization and modernization (the Russian was assumed to be Czarist after the Soviets were eradicated):



It was the Americans, even before the right-wingers Reagan and Carter, that really decided to back the most religiously nuts Islamic backward members of the region:

First, what are our objectives? Assumedly they involve:

Preventing a Soviet psychological victory and forcing the Soviets back at least to the status quo ante as regards Afghanistan.

...We would pick up on their [Iran's] offer to discuss the Afghan insurgency problem. If they show further interest, we would have
to be prepared to offer Iran help in supporting the insurgency. We could provide arms, money and training; we would consult closely with Tehran and provide intensive intelligence brief- ints.

Operation Cyclone was the big result.

By any measure the US has long used terrorism. In ‘78-79 the Senate was trying to pass a law against international terrorism – in every version they produced, the lawyers said the US would be in violation.

This is the Afghanistan that the West built:











Here are the declassified files as requested by the rightwing organization Justice Watch.

Is this even questionable? I could easily spend all day finding more and more examples of this. The leftist's enemy was religious orthodoxy and the slavish clinging to the past. It always has been, and so they tried to remove that from the Islamic World.

The capitalists opposed the left and found that their enemy of their enemy was their friend.

Now to turn around and proclaim that up-is-down because they have to deal with the extreme rightwing fighters that they created would be a pathetic attempt at manipulation if there weren't fools so eager to lick the paws of their masters in devotion to feelings instead of objective reality.

[stephen50right]

[quote="The Immortal Goon"]Your take on something fictional you imagine is very interesting.

Lefitsts and Islam:

<<< Your take on something fictional you imagine is very interesting. >>>

You probably believe that Obama, Hillary and every leftist in America wanted to bring in boatload after boatload of Muslims...

...for "humanitarian" reasons.

Now THAT is fiction.

[Pants-of-dog]

I have no interest in analyzing the Unibomber's rambling, insanity oriented treatise. However YOUR premise is interesting.

My take on why leftists and radical Muslims align with each other is their common hatred of Christianity and Judaism.

Oh right, you never replied to my point about how many leftists are Christians or Jews. Which, of course, disproves your idea that leftists hate religion.

Leftists in America particularly hate that our Founding Fathers were mostly Christians and believed strongly in God. Leftists when they are being honest, would admit that they wish to tear up our Constitution and write their own. Radical Muslims wish to simply take us over completely with Sharia Law.

Leftists would want to impose socialism, while Islamists want Sharia law. This would actually put them at cross purposes.

My guess is that both groups figure they will work together to try their radical best to get rid of America as we now know it, and then sort out the spoils among themselves. In their warped demented minds, I can see them in the same room saying let's work together to take over America, and you can have the East, and we'll take the West...something like that.

While taking the US down would be awesome, your imaginary meetings are not evidence for such a conspiracy.

Both of these groups are inherently dangerous to the continued freedom and liberty of all Americans.

Actually, leftists are trying to make you more free by getting rid of the inherently exploitative thing we call capitalism.

[The Immortal Goon]

You probably believe that Obama, Hillary and every leftist in America wanted to bring in boatload after boatload of Muslims...

Though your own precious sense of being a snowflake probably won't allow you, I would be curious what would happen if you objectively looked at our conversation thus far.

You made a claim.

I countered that claim with various primary, secondary, and tertiary sources all cited and linked. Some of them, like Justice Watch, were deliberately chosen based on making a wide net of ideological points of origin. They all, regardless of perceived party affiliation, supported my point that negated yours.

Your reaction to this was not to defend your position; it was not to evaluate your own position; it was to bring up a completely other issue and then accuse me (with no evidence whatsoever) of supporting a different issue.

Do you not see how this not undermines your own view, but your entire ideology? If someone were to read this, don't you think you would be perceived as being a foolish ideologue with no recourse?

And if you continue to spout your incorrect and (be default disproven) assertion that radicalized Islam is in an alliance with the left, what does this say about you? You have seen the evidence, you have not been able to counter it.

What are you basing your views upon? Is it actual reality, what you actually know, or is it a mere feeling that you're chasing with no connection to reality?

[stephen50right]

Though your own precious sense of being a snowflake probably won't allow you, I would be curious what would happen if you objectively looked at our conversation thus far.

You made a claim.

I countered that claim with various primary, secondary, and tertiary sources all cited and linked. Some of them, like Justice Watch, were deliberately chosen based on making a wide net of ideological points of origin. They all, regardless of perceived party affiliation, supported my point that negated yours.

Your reaction to this was not to defend your position; it was not to evaluate your own position; it was to bring up a completely other issue and then accuse me (with no evidence whatsoever) of supporting a different issue.

Do you not see how this not undermines your own view, but your entire ideology? If someone were to read this, don't you think you would be perceived as being a foolish ideologue with no recourse?

And if you continue to spout your incorrect and (be default disproven) assertion that radicalized Islam is in an alliance with the left, what does this say about you? You have seen the evidence, you have not been able to counter it.

What are you basing your views upon? Is it actual reality, what you actually know, or is it a mere feeling that you're chasing with no connection to reality?

When it comes to radical Islam and their alliance with the left, you are a textbook illustration of the three monkeys...see no evil, hear no evil, and speak no evil on this obvious fact which we all know.

Malcolm X was a leftist Muslim, and there are others like him including Barack Hussein Obama who is obviously a leftist, and in my opinion is also a Muslim in which he will sometime in the future come out of the closet and admit that he is a Muslim.

But you go ahead stay with your three monkeys scenario, which I guess you must find enjoyable because ignorance is bliss.

[Pants-of-dog]

@stephen50right

You keep ignoring my point about how many leftists are Christian or Jewish, which contradicts your claim.

You also ignore the conflict between Islamists and socialists.

Instead, you delude yourself into thinking Obama is a leftist and a Muslim, even though he is just as guilty as Trump when it comes to bombing Muslims in the name of capitalism.

[The Immortal Goon]

Malcolm X was a leftist Muslim

Sure. And look what happened to him.

Barack Hussein Obama who is obviously a leftist

He is, at best, Centre-Right. Please provide evidence that he is a leftist.

...and in my opinion is also a Muslim in which he will sometime in the future come out of the closet and admit that he is a Muslim.

Your snowflake feelings are irrelevant to reality.

But you go ahead stay with your three monkeys scenario, which I guess you must find enjoyable because ignorance is bliss.

I have provided numerous links, citations from a variety of sources, and historical evidence. You have cited your feelings.

Further, @Pants-of-dog is correct in pointing out that you have not addressed his own argument that contradicts your feelings.

[stephen50right]

Your snowflake feelings are irrelevant to reality.

<<< Your snowflake feelings are irrelevant to reality. >>>

First time I've ever been called that...but in any event...name calling is the last refuge of a leftist who is beat. Your ideas are old, tired, washed up, and wrong.
Thank goodness the majority of the electoral college now knows that, and I predict your side will get further trounced in the 2018 mid-terms. By then you can think up more silly name insults to display your wisdom.

[Pants-of-dog]

<<< Your snowflake feelings are irrelevant to reality. >>>

First time I've ever been called that...but in any event...name calling is the last refuge of a leftist who is beat. Your ideas are old, tired, washed up, and wrong.
Thank goodness the majority of the electoral college now knows that, and I predict your side will get further trounced in the 2018 mid-terms. By then you can think up more silly name insults to display your wisdom.

Okay.

As long as we agree that you have no evidence, that the existing evidence contradicts you, and you keep believing these things even when reality shows differently.

[The Immortal Goon]

First time I've ever been called that...but in any event...name calling is the last refuge of a leftist who is beat. Your ideas are old, tired, washed up, and wrong.
Thank goodness the majority of the electoral college now knows that, and I predict your side will get further trounced in the 2018 mid-terms. By then you can think up more silly name insults to display your wisdom.

My side isn't attempting to win the elections in 2018.

Again, you are attributing what you feel to me, despite all evidence to the contrary, and basing reality upon those feelings.

This is not the case.

name calling is the last refuge of a leftist who is beat

Pointing out that you are relying on your feelings and have yet to produce any evidence to justify your claims, that you have yet to refute any evidence presented against your claim, and that you have not provided any logical leap to any of your claims, is not, "name calling."

As POD points out, you have no evidence, existing evidence contradicts you, and you believe what you feel despite this.

You are always free to make a logical argument based upon sourced facts and citations.

[AJS]

I don't think left and right are an especially useful lens to look at this.

Many leftists don't support Islamism and certain foreign policy actions of the US during the cold war don't represent the right in its entirety. And anyway left and right are very broad political groupings.

It’s more accurate to say that certain elements of the political left have been hijacked to advance an Islamist agenda.

[Pants-of-dog]

It is even more accurate to say that Islaimist elements were supported by the right in order to promote capitalism and attack leftists.

[The Immortal Goon]

It’s more accurate to say that certain elements of the political left have been hijacked to advance an Islamist agenda.

You are always free to make a logical argument based upon sourced facts and citations.

[AJS]

@Pants-of-dog

It is if you accept the Soviet Union as representative of leftists in general sense.

[Pants-of-dog]

No, the fact that the US attacked Soviets does not magcally mena that Soviets are representative of all leftists. The US also attacked Chileans because they were leftists. According to your logic, that means all leftists are Chilean.

Whiskey Tango Foxtrot.

[AJS]

How on earth did you arrive at that?

[Pants-of-dog]

That was what you said.

But hey, if we want to agree that such logic is asinine, I am all for it.

Now, disregarding weird logic about nationality being representative of ideologies, it is a fact that the US armed and trained Islamic militants in the hopes of killing leftists.

On the other hand, there is very little evidence that leftist movements have been hijacked by Islamic extremists. At best, you might find that one or two progressive groups have members who are Muslims and who may have had limited contact with people who are accused of Islamism.