Churchill's Views

[Dooga Aetrus Blackrazor]

"Any man who is under 30, and is not a socialist, has no heart; and any man who is over 30, and is not a conservative, has no brains."

Note: this quote may be wrong and is a paraphrasing. There are multiple versions of it.

Obviously, I disagree with this statement. Although Churchill has some admirable qualities, I don't view him positively on a larger scale. Regardless, it seems that most leftists are younger individuals. I would argue the following causes:

1. Youth are oppressed more by hierarchy and rebel against it when lacking power.
2. As people get older, they often disregard leftist ideology because the extreme left they grew up with is now centrist.
3. Hierarchy oppresses people more as they age making them believe the rumor that communism and anarchism cannot work. In short, their spirit has been trampled upon for longer.

Thoughts about my ideas? Number 2 is just a wild guess because I doubt the world is moving left (although I hope it is). Other hypotheses?

[loveme4whoiam]

I'd go with the third one. People are so wrapped up in just surviving in the system that they can see no alternative but to work for the system. Younger people generally have more free time to pursue activism, and have yet to be instilled with the dependance of their elders.

I'm 18, by the way :P

[BattleOfTheCowshed]

Originally posted by Dooga Aetrus [email protected] 13 2006, 10:33 PM
"Any man who is under 30, and is not a socialist, has no heart; and any man who is over 30, and is not a conservative, has no brains."

Note: this quote may be wrong and is a paraphrasing. There are multiple versions of it.

Obviously, I disagree with this statement. Although Churchill has some admirable qualities, I don't view him positively on a larger scale. Regardless, it seems that most leftists are younger individuals. I would argue the following causes:

1. Youth are oppressed more by hierarchy and rebel against it when lacking power.
2. As people get older, they often disregard leftist ideology because the extreme left they grew up with is now centrist.
3. Hierarchy oppresses people more as they age making them believe the rumor that communism and anarchism cannot work. In short, their spirit has been trampled upon for longer.

Thoughts about my ideas? Number 2 is just a wild guess because I doubt the world is moving left (although I hope it is). Other hypotheses?
I think Churchill basically meant to say that he viewed the left as being idealistic and the right as being pragmatic, its a common view. He viewed the right-wing as eventually being everyone's political conclusion.

I think all of your ideas on why this is are correct. Occasionally the left does become the center due to progress, and thus many individuals who were originally leftist may settle for the status quo. More often however, people simply become demoralized and feel that the left is not a viable option and resign themselves to capitalism. Or in the case of bourgeois leftists, usually they realize its in their interest to become capitalists, and do.

[FULL METAL JACKET]

Originally posted by Dooga Aetrus [email protected] 13 2006, 05:33 PM
"Any man who is under 30, and is not a socialist, has no heart; and any man who is over 30, and is not a conservative, has no brains."

Note: this quote may be wrong and is a paraphrasing. There are multiple versions of it.

Obviously, I disagree with this statement. Although Churchill has some admirable qualities, I don't view him positively on a larger scale. Regardless, it seems that most leftists are younger individuals. I would argue the following causes:

1. Youth are oppressed more by hierarchy and rebel against it when lacking power.
2. As people get older, they often disregard leftist ideology because the extreme left they grew up with is now centrist.
3. Hierarchy oppresses people more as they age making them believe the rumor that communism and anarchism cannot work. In short, their spirit has been trampled upon for longer.

Thoughts about my ideas? Number 2 is just a wild guess because I doubt the world is moving left (although I hope it is). Other hypotheses?
Dude stop thinking so much, he's making fun of the left, that's all.

[ReD_ReBeL]

what about these Churchill quotes then :...

"Socialism is a philosophy of failure, the creed of ignorance, and the gospel of envy, its inherent virtue is the equal sharing of misery. " -
Winston Churchill

"The inherent vice of capitalism is the unequal sharing of blessings; the inherent virtue of socialism is the equal sharing of miseries. " -
Winston Churchill

[drain.you]

Anyone know the average age of a revleft member?

[Roses in the Hospital]

Regardless, it seems that most leftists are younger individuals

I disagree. I think it's fair to say that most (politically concious) youths are but not that most leftists are youths. The biggest concentration of leftists is almost certainlly going to be the working class, though for the most part they're likely to be 'old labour' rather than anarchists/communists. Similarlly there's still a fair amount of leftism amongst the middle-class intelligentsia; I'm in the first year of my BA and I'd say just under half my lecturers confessed to Marxist influences of one type or another, the same was broadlly true at college too.
Perhaps, it's true that the most radical leftists are the young, but to say that all leftists are young is simply wrong...

[Mr Brightside]

I don't agree with the idea that people are more leftist when they're young or become conservative beyond a certain age. My old man as an example: In his younger days he was in the Labour Party as well as heavily involved in the Trade Union Movement. My dad left the Labour Party years ago and recently told me he regarded himself as an Anarcho-Syndicalist.

Kinda makes what Churchill said look like a shower of shite. But that can't be hard, he stood up in parliament and described Mussolini as something along the lines of "a great man and a fine leader" and then went to war with him. But even then he collaborated with Nazi German trops in Greece to crush a Communist uprising... such fine speeches he made against Hitler...

"We will fight them on the beaches... we will collaborate against commies... We will be drunken old fascist scum"

Sorry, I got carried away... I don't like Churchill... at all.