Macron vs Le Pen.

Author: TheUnderdog

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TheUnderdog
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They are both far left politicians.  Le Pen supports all of the following policies:

1) She is an open feminist.
2)She Is pro choice
3) She supports Medicare for all
4) She supports gun control
5) She opposes the death penalty.
6) She supports Putin, the leader of the country that was the core of the USSR.
7) She hasn’t spoken out against Macron’s tyrannical vaccine passport.
8) She supports France being in the EU

So France has 2 far left politicians running for public office.  The French people are under the illusion of choice.
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Vive Le Pen
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@TheUnderdog
These things are only far-left to an American audience, and even then, not really. Most of these positions are supported by everyone except conservatives (gun control, opposing the death penalty), and some supported by everyone except the far-right (medicare for all) in the EU and the commonwealth.

Even if we accept Le Pen supports Putin, as an actual member of the left, I can assure you that that position is one of the furthest things from the left I can imagine.
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@Nyxified
>egalitarian
> redubs it 'feminism' to make it sound man-hating and calls it 'far left' xD!

Oh god. This is good stuff.

2)She Is pro choice
Must be a dirty socialist!

3) She supports Medicare for all
Evil far-left witch! Macron wants the same but oh no!
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@TheUnderdog
>supports Putin

>far-left

LOL
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@TheUnderdog
Left-wing politics support social equality and egalitarianism, often in opposition of social hierarchy.  Left-wing politics typically involve a concern for those in society whom its adherents perceive as disadvantaged relative to others as well as a belief that there are unjustified inequalities that need to be reduced or abolished.

Right-wing politics is generally defined by support of the view that certain social orders and hierarchies are inevitable, natural, normal, or desirable,  typically supporting this position on the basis of natural law, economics, authority or tradition.

By French tradition dating from the Tennis Court oaths at the beginning of the French Revolution, LEFT is human rights before property rights, RIGHT is property rights before human rights.  

If you support the proposition that "all men were created equal" then you are a left winger.  If you are loyal to the principle of democracy, then you are a left-winger, by definition.  If you are a faithful Christian, then you are a left-winger by definition.  No people who respect themselves and their personal autonomy would ever want to be dominated by government and no practitioner of the golden rule would support domination according to social hierarchy since they themselves would not want to be dominated.

Le Pen is an economic nationalist. She's no capitalist.  She believes the state should run the machines of industry and intervene in the economy at every level.  Le Pen believes that banks should be prevented from investing in markets.  She believes investors be should restricted to investing in France.  She's against privatization of any govt service.  She opposes the admission of Ukraine into NATO and calls for French friendship with Putin's dictatorship.  Le Pen would ban the wearing of yarmulkes or other religious outer wear.  Le Pen doesn't sound like a friend of liberty to me. 

You might call it far-left from the perspective of the far-right, but there were many candidates far left of these two and other candidates far right of these two- more left than right, generally speaking although in France there's nationalist liberal-conservative parties so the spectrum is more diverse than in the US.   There's no doubt the French center is far left of the American center, which is all you really saying here.  LePen has moved steadily left since 2011 in effort to make herself more palatable but can you trust political changes of mind made only for political gain?
TheUnderdog
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@Nyxified
Then what does it mean to be conservative in France?
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@oromagi
Le Pen is leftist trash.  I’d respect it more if she ran as a leftist, but she won’t.  Get this RINO out of the race and replace them with an actual conservative, not a European fake conservative.
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@TheUnderdog
Think Obama. He'd be centre-right in France, I think. I'm not that knowledgeable about him (I was literally 12 years old when he left office), but from what I know of his policy, it seems like a fitting comparison.
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@Nyxified
He'd be centre-right in France
How?
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@TheUnderdog
Because Americans overestimate just how left Europe is just because the US is further right than most of Europe. Seriously, the specifics around abortion, voter ID, universal healthcare, etc. that Democrats in the US advocate for is found almost nowhere in Europe. Sure, the Democrats aren't as far to the left in some issues, but they are significantly further in others but don't admit it.
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@TheUnderdog
3) She supports Medicare for all
How dare she! I refuse to pay for the French to get on Medicare
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@TheUnderdog
All of the major things that occurred under his administration that I can recall off the top of my head already exist in Europe, some a few steps further (like how instead of Obamacare, France just has free universal healthcare). So if you take the current state of affairs in France, consider anyone upholding the status quo to be a centrist, and consider how Obama's policies and administration are a regression/a conservative perspective relative to what already exists, he'd be on the right.
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@Nyxified
Lets say there are 2 politicians.  One advocates cutting the top marginal income tax from 10% to 5% and the other wants to raise the top marginal tax rate from 3% to 5%.  The former politician is on the right on this issue and the ladder is left because the former wants to make their area more right wing and the ladder wants to make their area more left wing.

Obama wanted to make America more left wing by going from an even more privatized form of healthcare to Obamacare.  Obama is on the left.  If he was born in France, he would want more funding to go to France's UHC.

If Le Pen advocated for a public option, she'd be on the right.  Someone in the US advocates the same thing, they are on the left.
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@TheUnderdog
You're operating under the assumption that, because Obama wanted to push America to the left, he would also want to push France to the left. This assumption is unfounded; if Obama believed Obamacare was the ideal system of healthcare, he would change the current system of healthcare from complete privatization (which means he pushes it to the left) or from universal health care (which means he pushes it to the right).

Obama's stated beliefs and the policy changes he implemented, if implemented in France, would represent pushing France to the right side of the political spectrum because they are currently further left than Obama's beliefs.

Yes, pushing the top marginal tax rate from 3% to 5% represents pushing the tax rate to the left of the political spectrum, but if that same politician believes it should be 5% and it's currently 10%, by lowering it to 5%, he pushes the tax rate to the right of the political spectrum. That's all that I'm saying. Just because a politician wants the tax rate to go from 3% to 5% doesn't intrinsically mean they also want it to go from 10% to 20%.
TheUnderdog
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@Nyxified
You're operating under the assumption that, because Obama wanted to push America to the left, he would also want to push France to the left. This assumption is unfounded; if Obama believed Obamacare was the ideal system of healthcare, he would change the current system of healthcare from complete privatization (which means he pushes it to the left) or from universal health care (which means he pushes it to the right).
Obamacare was what Obama was aiming for as a compromise because he was ambitious, but not so ambitious as Bernie Sanders is on healthcare. Obama believed Obamacare was better than the status quo, so he implemented it.  He knew he couldn't implement UHC because of the GOP and the American people.  But he thought he could get Obamacare passed, and he was successful.

Just because a politician wants the tax rate to go from 3% to 5% doesn't intrinsically mean they also want it to go from 10% to 20%.
Such a politician probably would want the top marginal income tax rate raised from 10% to 12% though, because on that issue, they want slightly more left wing policy.
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Anyone who values a Western-led, liberal international order ought to hope Macron wins re-election. A President Le Pen would be a dream come true for Putin, a golden opportunity to drive a wedge in the West's united response to the invasion of Ukraine.
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Le Penn is soft on unassimilated islamists, the french shouldve voted for Éric Zemmour. The far-right deserve to lose so Im definitely rooting for Macron.

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@TheUnderdog
6) She supports Putin, the leader of the country that was the core of the USSR.
Please explain how this ties into the political left. 
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@Double_R
Because Russia was the core of the USSR and locations rarely change ideology.  It's why Dixieland is more conservative than the rest of the country today; because that was the case 50 years ago.
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This from a private account on Twitter is basically my take: 

“Macron is a committed neoliberal who hates the welfare state, moved right on immigration, and thinks the EU should be a militaristic power that controls large parts of Africa. Seeing libs pretend he is Just Like Us because the alternative is Le Pen is v funny” 
TheUnderdog
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@thett3
Macron wants UHC, gun control, supports speech codes, supports free college, is an open femenist, is agnostic, wants open borders and free healthcare for foreigners.  He would be a lefty here in 'Murica.
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@TheUnderdog
Macron wants UHC, gun control, supports speech codes, supports free college, is an open femenist, is agnostic, wants open borders and free healthcare for foreigners.  He would be a lefty here in 'Murica.
True dat.
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@TheUnderdog
Because Russia was the core of the USSR and locations rarely change ideology.  It's why Dixieland is more conservative than the rest of the country today; because that was the case 50 years ago.
That does not address the question. How does someone supporting Putin align them with the political left?
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@Double_R
That does not address the question. How does someone supporting Putin align them with the political left?
For the same reason that someone supporting DeSantis aligns the with the political right.  Putin is left wing.  He wants to spread Russia's suto-communist influence to other countries.  He also opposes NATO, which is right wing and was formed to be an anti-communist bloc.