You're welcome..........................credit where credit is due :-)

"You know how far the war on drugs has gotten us "
Prohibition of any drugs started with the prohibition of alcohol. But only alcohol prohibition was rescinded, despite it being equally dangerous as other drugs. The "war" on drugs started around 1970, and it goes about as well as any "war" on your own citizens goes. I think it's equal to anti-gun laws in destroying freedom in subtle ways. It's not that people would have used guns or drugs to fight tyranny, but prohibition promotes the idea of citizens as children. It promotes the question "why does anyone need [a dangerous thing]?" "Explain why it should be legal?" instead of "explain why gov't should try to control people who are into it."

I heard a news story the other day about an EPA regulation the Obama administration enacted on the last day of his presidency. I voted for President Obama and supported more environmental protection, so I was ready to support it. It was a law banning a solvent sold in hardware stores with a label warning users you need to use it in a ventilated space. It is safe if used as directed, but the EPA person being interviewed said anything a consumer can have should be absolutely safe. Damn. I couldn't disagree more. I think that attitude is related to gun control and drug prohibition.

Seems to me it's just an extension - but WHAT an extension - of the war on drugs. You know how far the war on drugs has gotten us, I assume. We're going backward!

"It's like they are completely ignoring the ACTUAL problem [with opiods], which is people who are illegally obtaining these drugs and using them without actual need."
They also ignore the extent to which prohibition contributes to the problem. People adopted more potent (volumetrically) opiods to avoid law enforcement. This causes more ODs and more addiction. They do not compare the current level of "crisis" with how it would be if gov't got out of it altogether and let people treated it as a medical, personal, spiritual problem. It's hard to say, but I suspect if gov't stopped all the policing, imprisonment, foreign interdiction, education/propaganda, and so on, the problem would be no worse, maybe even better. If my suspicion is right, we're spending all this money and giving up rights for nothing.

Thanks, OUC. I like that definition the best, if one must use a left/right graphic.

Just as you point out, the confusion comes in as described in your last paragraph with the all important question.

We live in an era of mass delusion because few people are actually interested in finding the truth. It can be blamed on laziness to a large degree - especially intellectual laziness. What is most disappointing is the displayed apathy and even hostility shown by those to truth when it is shown to them. This second is particularly dangerous to any who endorse freedom.

You (and I) are up here (waving my hand high above my head). Most others are about here (waving my hand in front of my knees). I hope that makes sense.

A. That the foible is common does not mean it does not characterize the Left.

B. Yes.

C. The Manifesto mentions "seizing" the means of production.

D. Perhaps you are correct.

E. A good thing. Most of them don't understand what their philosophy requires of someone else. Unfortunately, nor do they care.

If we took the phrase to mean one has the, Right to be judged and treated fairly, like all phrases progressive, it sounds good, but it is not. Such is the case here. It's rather something quite perverse.

SJW's are the one's that fear Free Speech, reasoned fact based observations and accountability for their own actions and enforced thought policing upon others.. They are, no matter how good SJW sounds...the results of delusion and information noise.

I'd sooner, one be judged by the content of one's character and yes, be judged fairly; not to mention, Judged fairly in a court of law by a jury of one's peers.

"the Orville"
I watched the first episode, and I've been meaning to watch the rest.

They should come up with another name for those. Those old ladies at church took it first. But they're not warriors. Maybe they're "social justice stewards" or something, and I'm a social justice "supporter" if I make my pledge contributions and send my kids to RE to learn about social justice.

I like, "Ace Erasure" might be a character that goes around eliminating value creation or proficiency of some actions. The Adventures of Ace Erasure.

If your having a tough time with social justice warriors, I'd suggest viewing episode 7 of the Orvill on Fox TV...you can see the episodes on the internet...I kind of binged on them yesterday. Not sure I like the series, kind of dumb at times and not funny but that episode would give you a proper picture of SJW's in action.

"the Left does not understand that human beings with the power of consciousness, introspection, and independence also have the power to come to opposite conclusions. That is, it does not see alternatives to its own dogma and, as such, is stagnant."
This seems like a common foible. When people come to opposite conclusion, it's hard to dig in and find if they are starting from different axioms, using different facts, making a logical error, or some combination of them.

"refusal to acknowledge Stalinism and thought policing as an essential product of Marxism."
Right. Don't most Marxists say Stalin just implemented it wrong?

"it sees its own authoritarianism as contingent on the eschewing of capitalism. "
If the people in question are Marxist, then isn't eschewing capitalism automatic, regardless of its relationship to authoritarianism?

"The principle of not initiating force] is also what distinguishes garden-variety Socialists from hardcore Communists, the latter of whom believe in violent revolution."
Don't both socialists and communists agree with initiating force if the cause (according to them) is just?

"The Marxists do not understand that non-violence undercuts the essential method of Leftist propaganda and thought-control."
You're saying some, not all, Marxists believe in non-violence, and they do not realize Marxism and non-violence don't go together, so they are not very successful? I guess that's a good thing. I assumed when people say they want non-violent Marxism they're lying or defining violence extremely loosely.

"just think of the "name calling" or the ideological consequences as an acronym"
It's possible that they're just words I don't know. There must be a website that decodes phrases like this: delusional totalitarian intelligentsia, otherkin hate, suffragettes (in modern times), ace erasure. I think I'm getting old; I prefer the old-school words. Whenever I hear about "social justice warriors" I imagine the sweet old ladies on the church social justice committee turning warlike. When I read "totalitarian intelligentsia", I thought of the Soviet Union. "Ace erasure" is my joking catchall for things that are annoying. I know what it really means, but I don't really get why it's a word.

Ideally, we could think of it as Entropy. 0 entropy and max entropy,

The extreme left has always represented Max Entropy in various forms...including fascism, progressivism and even white supremacisism.
Whereas the the extreme right has always represented 0 entropy or No government control at all...max freedom.

The Country, the Federal Republic, was designed to be slightly right of center...just enough entropy to keep things running smoothly.

As for what they say and what they actually represent,.,. is really up for grabs today; so really, we are left with the question: What do They believe they mean and are they being factually honest.

"I wonder what the "left" and "right" really are." I have to go along with you on that one, CG! The definitions seem to be rather fluid depending on who's doing the writing and the context in which the terms are found. Shooting from the hip, I believe the terms originally referred to what side of the British Parliament aisle a delegate sat. But nowadays, who knows for sure. One explanation given to me many years ago was the "left" were communists and the "right" were fascists and the rest of us were somewhere in the middle. Cough cough, really? As in freedom is somehow a Venn Diagram intersection of Stalin and Hitler? I don't think so! Yep, "I wonder what the "left" and "right" really are."

Only begrudgingly like shackles around one's ankles as punishment for what others did or didn't do.
Government control has grown because we never had a consensus in the population to limit it as the constitution was designed to do; so now we suffer the consequences of the inaction of each subsequent generation.

The name calling, as you put it, is to identify whom we are talking about. Most of us know who they are, know what that means and what pervades those idiotologies and they are quite the opposite of reasoned rational observational reality.

Just think of the "name calling" or the ideological consequences as an acronym...it saves paper and trees...laughing hysterically.

Ah...but in the "progressive" tradition, the meaning will get skewed as usual.

" more autonomy for the individual"
Yes. In my lifetime I see no major force for this, unfortunately. It seems like we accept gov't control as a fact of life.

And right it shouldn't. I used to use a very small amount in the water tank of my boat just to kill the bacteria that grows in hot weather but it wasn't enough to taste it or remain in the body. I could of easily used a small portion of colloidal silver or a very small amount of hydrogen peroxide for treating stagnant water storage.

I like that you treat the excess calcium in the water. It ages us, causes blockages and other harms to the body. Mankind was not meant to consume "ROCK". We get our calcium from plants.

The article begins saying civilization rests on an objective reality that can be discerned through reason by humankind. It then degenerates into epithets about "social justice warriors" and a "delusional totalitarian intelligentsia". He then says the people who he's calling these names are responsible for rejection of objective reality. This name-calling without identifying any actual claims seems like a clear example of the delusion and rejection of reason he talks about in the first part of the article.

Good points.
I 'try' to right about the truths of what is happening on many scales from a verifiable historical sense.

Left to me was always about unions and max government control and the Right was about less government control and more autonomy for the individual but over the past 100 years since the progressive era the lines between them has gotten blurred.
That lack of a stark division was the intention of the left from inception...it's a shame the masses didn't listen to those, like Rand, that tried to warn us.

"It is why some libertarians say that they are "socially liberal and fiscally conservative.""
It seems like this idea is so popular it's become a cliche. In the show 30 Rock, someone asks the protagonists what politics she follows. She says "fiscally liberal, socially conservative," in an extremely perfunctory way that suggests it was such a trite platitude that she didn't even notice she had said it backwards.

It I'm right and this cliche goes beyond my little bubble, I wonder why we don't see any mainstream candidates offering fiscal conservatism. My guess is that we only want it in the way we want to eat right, exercise, and always get enough time to for sleep and recreation. We want to balance the budget but cutting waste, without touching social security, military, medical assistance, scientific research, grants that benefit us, or raising taxes.

But the fact that it's a cliche gives me some hope.

Adding stuff like chlorine and fluoride to the water is another thing i don't get. I live in the Netherlands where we don't have anything in the water. The only thing done to our water is cleaning and in some provinces the removal of excess calciumhydroxide.
Hearing that tap water in the United States has fluorine/chlorine fazes me. I found it strange to taste water with chlorine in Disneyland Hong Kong a couple of months ago, it just didn't feel right to me

" the left and right share a common mistaken premise?"
I wonder what the "left" and "right" really are. I'd like to think that most people who do not get paid to write about or talk about specific things just want the truth.

Among people writing about test equipment, people are in the Tektronix or Rohde & Schwarz camps, but users just want a way to get visual representation of changing electrical signals. They win when the equipment helps them solve their problems, not when a particular vendor wins.

I have done paid writing for test equipment, so I don't enjoy talking about it as an avocation as much. I have never done paid writing or anything for gov't, so I just want gov't to work--- actually to do very little but do it efficiently. It seems like people who do paid writing about gov't forget that their readers want a good outcome and do not care if the people paying the writer win or lose.