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Comment by beaconstudios | Hacker News Reader

one can point out trends in political groups without implying that they're a hoard of drones.

But nothing was being pointed out, neither was the implication of drone-ness taken away.

GP's point was just that a sweeping generalisation of "the modern Left" is a meaningless statement, because it doesn't address a well-defined group, and the Left generally is not similar enough among itself for those broad claims to be true. Representing an entire swathe of the political spectrum as one homogeneous group is completely dishonest and unrealistic. It's definitely not "pointing out a trend".

it addresses a familiar group to those with a similar perspective/experience to the GP. I immediately thought of the progressive movement and especially the media outlets associated with it. I'm not even particularly conservative but I've definitely noticed the trend of anti-Western attitudes in outlets like the Guardian, Buzzfeed, Gawker (RIP) and so on, as well as an associated culture on sites like reddit.

Sure you can.

But if your group is so wide that people so different as H.Clinton and Chomsky could be inside it, and you talk about their motivations instead of a specific idea, I think you deserve some criticism.

that's like suggesting that saying modern conservatives have a hard-on for forgiving/accepting aggressive foreign policy is unfair. Political wings definitely have trends.

I think you are being a little unfair here.

I think it is more like saying:

"The modern Right is dripping with hatred for the Government - quite ironic given that we live in one the most free, prosperous societies ever created in human history. They are driven almost entirely by resentment, and lack even a shred of gratitude for the vast wealth, comfort and freedom they've been born into."

You could ask me, and rightly so, who is this "modern right" and if I'm being fair when addressing their motivations.

You could ask me, also rightly, how the debate advance in a positive way with this kind of all covering statements.

but hatred for the government isn't an archetypal right-wing sentiment. Perhaps a libertarian one, to which I would agree (or maybe not hatred, more distrust). Is your main point that the GP said "modern left" where they should have said "progressive" or "far-left"?

There's no real way of describing the Clintons as "left" that would satisfy any self-described leftist. They just have no connection whatsoever to any historical leftist movement.

that depends entirely on what you would call "left". She may not be an activist but her espoused policies were very similar to Obama's implemented policies, and she was on his cabinet after all. You can call her an opportunist for sure, but you couldn't reasonably call her a conservative.

Obama is also not a leftist. Sanders, Nina Turner or Keith Ellison are the bare minimum that one could consider a leftist.

I think there's a difference between someone who is left, and someone who is a leftist. Leftist tends to be used to label communists and socialists, where "the left" generally includes progressives, social democrats, and so on. It's a pretty subjective concept though and easy to split hairs on. You could reasonably call Obama or Clinton centrists.

In Britain or Germany they both would be more moderate conservatives

I think Obama's campaign rhetoric would have been in line with the British Labour Party, but his actual policies were definitely moderate conservative. Probably similar to Cameron.

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