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jlf1961 -> Political definitions for the unamused. (2/20/2017 5:57:20 PM)
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A new term is being thrown around a lot lately, and the truth is that there is no way it can mean what the users thinks it means, kind of like military intelligence.
So alt left
well alt is short for alternate, so alt left means alternate left or
a conservative masking him or herself as a liberal.
You know, like neo conservative which is a fancy way of saying a progressive conservative.
Although the term alt left actually appeared first on a political satire website and carried on to common usage by comedians and political talking heads alike.
What makes the whole thing even more amusing is when you stop to consider politics in America.
Liberals and Conservatives have danced between supporting or attacking causes for the entire history of the country.
In the sixties, it was the democrats that fought tooth and nail (even against some of their die hard constituents which forced them to join the Republican party) for racial equality and the end of segregation and other racially motivated laws, which basically turned the KKK from a predominantly democrat organization to a predominantly republican one.
It was democrats who pushed for the build up of the United States Military under FDR with opposition from the Republicans, who in turn became the hawks of the late sixties onward.
So, at least in American politics, the terms Liberal and Conservative are not set in stone, in fact they change as often as the West Texas Weather, which is to say, if you dont like the weather now, wait ten minutes, it will change.
This has been true for gun control, women's rights, defense spending, health spending, health care (in fact a lot of Obamacare's core ideas were originally proposed by Republicans during the Bill (blow me under the desk in the oval office) Clinton administration.
Which made the Republican opposition to Obamacare funny as hell since some of the congress members opposing it supported the same ideas when they came from the GOP.
Walter Cronkite once said (and I am paraphrasing) that American politics is the best unscripted comedy variety show available for the entertainment of the masses, or would be if it were not for so many of the possible detrimental impacts on the people.
What makes it worse is that Liberal programs in the US are sometimes Conservative programs in other countries! Or, a liberal in the UK often has more in common with a conservative in the US, at least as far as a friend of mine is concerned, a brit ex pat who runs a local bar.
She votes liberal in every election in the UK, but looks at liberals in the US and wonders how they got their label.
She also considers me a barbarian and worse since I have often gone to her establishment straight from helping friends with such mundane chores as helping birth a calf, mucking stables and other country type things so I have stuff on my boots and cuffs of my jeans that have a rather pungent scent. In other words I show up for a few drinks smelling like I have either been working in a stable or feed lot all day (well if she did not pick a location that is at the halfway point between where I was helping and home, and being the only place that offers an actual British stout or imported ale, I would go home and clean up first, well except for the boots, they get cleaned before church on sunday.)
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