deepthought wrote on Feb 27
th, 2008 at 9:29pm:
Oh, how many did McCarthy execute again?
You're changing the goal posts. We were talking about intolerance not body count. A person can be a intolerant without having killed anyone. If Joseph McCarthy was living in say Kenya; had absolute power with no accountability (I'd imagine that ) he'll probably kill his enemies as opposed to merely subjecting them to congressional hearings.
The death toll attributed to Hitler was approx 50 million people (Jews, homosexuals, handicaps, intellectuals, Russians, Romanians, Hungarians & Lithuanian POWs).
The death toll attributed to Idi Amin was 500,000 people.
The persecution death toll attributed to Stalin was approx 20 million people.
The persecution death toll attributed to Pol Pot was approx. 1.7 million people.
The persecution death toll attributed to Mao Zedong was approx 30 million people (not to be confused with another 72 million people who died from starvation due to drought and famine prior to The Great Leap Forward.)
You will find that although Stalin operated under the Communist doctrine (left wing, society, collectivism) his ego was most definitely right wing (meglomania, self, individualism, and singularism).
However, I'm not going to argue the political spectrum based on death count - both left and right have an equally deplorable human rights record. I'm talking more on the philosophical points of left/right. I talking more about the average citizen.
Lifted out of wikipedia:
Public control of the means of production (left), or private control of the means of production (right).
Workers' self-management (left), or employment (right).
Redistribution of wealth and income (left), or acceptance of inequalities as a result of the free market (right).
Whether the government's policy on the economy should be interventionist (left) or laissez-faire (right).
Support for widened lifestyle choices (left), or support for traditional values (right).
Whether human nature is more malleable (left) or intrinsic (right).
Whether an individual's locus of control is more external (left) or internal (right).
Personal philosophy and liberal spiritualism (left) versus traditional religious morality (right).
Collectivism (left) versus individualism (right).
Support for internationalism (left), or national cultural and economic autonomy (right).
Belief in class conflict (left), or in class collaboration/class ambivalence (right). Left wing = redistribution of wealth, internationalism, liberal spiritualism, malleable, collectivism.
Right wing = intrinsic, religious morality, nationalistic and economic autonomy, individualism.
Left wing = pluralism, society.
Right wing = monoism, individualism.
Which sounds more capable of intollerance?
The left wing argument for the recent Haneef case: whether he is guilty or not he has his right to civil liberty.
The right wing argument: bugger his rights, we don't care that he might be innocent. Better to be safe than sorry.
Which sounds more intollerant?
Left winger are often called bleeding hearts and do-gooders.
Right wingers are often called warmongers.
Which sounds more intollerant?