Japanese government dismantles freedom of the press

I think you're falling for the fallacy of assigning political opinions to a one-dimensional spectrum of liberal v.s. conservative, and doubly so by asserting that your opinion on a given issue can only be caused by being on one end of that spectrum.

Even if you assume a one-dimensional political spectrum there's plenty of reasons for why someone might by for or against immigration for any number of reasons.

For simplicity's sake let's use the stereotypical US definitions of conservative and liberal, even then you can find plenty of reasons on both sides to be for and against immigration.

You could be conservative and be for it because you're a business owner and it implies cheap labor, or against it because you're also a xenophobe and just don't like people from other countries.

You could be for it as a liberal because you believe in some pan-nationalistic idea of humanity without borders, or against it because you think the influx of cheap labor will ultimately create a lower class within society which interferes with the project of a socialist state.

You mentioned Scotland as an example among the rise of the rise of right-wing ideals in Europe. I think it's entirely unrealistic to mention that in the same paragraph as nationalism leading to "massacres, and other oppression". If anything bad things might happen because Scotland is being denied national autonomy, just look at what's been happening in Ireland.

Sometimes people just want to do their own thing in their own little piece of the planet. I myself am from Iceland which has a long history of a nationalist movement that has nothing to do with any of that stuff. Sometimes people just want a bit of self-determinism without negatively impacting others. Ascribing that desire to left or right or conservative or liberal is a gross and inaccurate oversimplification.

What are you trying to do here? You think you know who downvoted you, and you're...calling them out? By...linking to their public user page?

> The Bolshevik revolution is an example of a left of center revolution, it certainly was nativist, nationalist, and was not conservative.

Actually, it was a fascist coup pretending to be a "left of center revolution".

Thanks for raising some interesting issues

> the political ideology is more nuanced ... I think it requires some research ...

I agree on one hand. On the other, any issue like this is much more complicated than what can be presented in an HN comment, so we all need to simplify things a little.

> You can have either liberals or conservatives subject to such an emotional appeal to the state

In theory, yes. I find this response by you and others to be odd. Nationalism is a tenant of conservativism, I believe, and I think that's widely accepted; I think most conservatives I can think of would embrace it. It almost seems like people are pushing back against anything that reflects badly (in the context of my original post) on conservatives, and/or are trying impose a theory of equivalence on a real situation where it doesn't exist. But I could be wrong, of course; I don't see significant evidence I'm wrong, I see plenty in my favor, but it's not conclusive.

I'd have to find a list of parties and their positions to know for sure, which is beyond the scope of what I'm going to do for this discussion. I'd be interested in seeing it if someone has one. More valuable would be surveys 'nationalist' attitudes, however those are defined, and other political beliefs (a quick online search didn't turn up any).

The correlation doesn't have to be perfect, of course. Some here pointed out the Scottish National Party, a left-wing but nationalist (or separatist) party. Also there is the Christian Democratic Union in Germany; its leader and German Chancellor, Angela Merkel, is pro-immigration (though I don't know about the rest of the party). Also, we might learn some nuance to tmy simplistic model by understanding what drives those parties.

> The Cultural Revolution, likewise a left of center revolution ... was nationalistic ... and certainly not conservative

It was indeed the opposite of conservative! I'm not sure I agree about nationalism. It was mostly the radicalization of a younger generation to reject and take power from the prior one (with plenty of self-serving political machinations mixed in, of course). I'm not sure how to map 'nationalism' to something like that. Also, much of Chinese communist ideology was service to the proletariat and, I think, to international Communism (and against capitalism), and not to the state.

If you could redesign a system of government free from major flaws we see today, how would it work? Current systems almost seem to have a tendency to "breed" the types of malevolent, inefficient, greedy and problematic power structures we see. I think that at the root of the problem are natural human flaws. It seems almost certain that given enough time, no matter how well intentioned people are, the cumulative effect of our natural flaws inevitably evolves the kind of system/culture that attracts and perpetuates these flawed tendencies. I think the process could be compared to natural selection. Has anyone thought about it like that? I'm curious. Is it possible to design a system of government which would not be influenced by inherent human flaws? A system which, by design, has a tendency to "select" characteristics that shape it to be more beneficial, free from its current flaws?