I'd rather ask the question why asking for the bare minimum of safety and solidarity (like unemployment support, paid maternity leave, health care) in the richest country on earth is called "extreme left", or "socialism".
The politicians claimed to be far left, or socialist would be members of conservative parties in all other develped democracies.
Because it is extreme for us. It is more socialism. Nobody else has any obligation to support your lifestyle, and we don't want every facet of it to be like Tricare, the VA, the DMV, or any of the countless things the government was never meant to be involved in, and manages to gloriously fuck up only to threaten to take it away when people are indoctrinated to it. No thanks.
And we aren't a democracy. We sure as fuck ain't Euro, so fuck off with that mighty white, colonialist bullshit.
Its only extreme to extremists. Everything I will say will fall on deaf ears. No one reading this will go research and learn anything. That’s ok. What many people call “left” is actually “center.” It’s just that so many people with centrist beliefs in certain things are progressives or extreme progressives that most centrist policy is associated with progressives and thus deemed leftist. But it’s all relative. We’ve seen a shift for the past several decades in America where what once was moderate has been labeled leftist. The fact is that advocating new taxes to pay for new programs is fiscally liberal. But advocating the creation of programs or funding public programs through other means is not inherently liberal or leftist. Just most people conflate all these words and concepts together and anyone who is seen as wanting to “give” things to anyone is labeled a leftist.
But capitalism- quite literally- requires competition. That’s the entire point of it. So policies that seek to curtail powers of business or institutions that have grown to a point that they effectively can’t be challenged aren’t leftist or liberal as they are often labeled- they are capitalist, American. Advocating the creation of public works while maintaining private options is also capitalist by nature. If you can’t do a better job than the government you should seek new work because man... those guys literally can fuck up selling water in a desert.
The creation of jobs and competition in industries is extremely capitalist and extremely fiscally centrist. the two extremes of our simple example are: person A: abolish private business in a sector and replace with government or public owned business. Person B: “the government shouldn’t offer this service for this sector and it should be entirely private.” So if those are our extremes- the moderate would say something like that both public/government business can exist within a sector, as well as private business; this will provide more options, more competition to encourage growth and quality; or that there should be some level of private and public representation and management in an industry. But in modern usage- person C- the middle ground between extremes- would usually be called a leftist or a liberal.
This is manly because we’ve seen more and more radicalization of the bases for the two extremes of the political spectrum- and a rise in ultra extremists to the far right and left. So from their position of extremism- moderation seems to be extremism because most people... they’re so far skewed from a balanced perspective that if they see something balanced at all- it’s as a dot on a distant horizon that same as the ignorant mind can’t tell the moon and a far off ship on the water aren’t the same distance away because they look the same size.
You consider that the bare minimum, but in actuality the bare minimum is shared morality. A shared sense of morality is the bare minimum for safety and solidarity because it provides the common ground of acceptable actions people can take. Anything after that is improvement to quality of life.
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In general, the three things listed (unemployment support, paid maternity leave, and health care) are not required or even at the very least something that governments have to have. It is simply by the nature of how we want our morality to be, namely as altruistic as possible. Those three things are appealing and consistent with the idea that we should reduce overall suffering, but are not required to do so. However, those three things cannot be accomplished for everyone on the individual level, so it is morally consistent to expect the "warden of the people" to take steps to providing those options.
While I personally believe that having those three things would be beneficial to everyone's lives, we have to be careful about who it applies to. At the current moment, we have a very large population of people who are not citizens, but also not on visas or any other permit that would allow them to be legally within the borders. Do those benefits extend to them? If not, then the basic limitation of requiring a valid ID would be a great step to providing legally approved people the care they need. But what if we want to extend these benefits to anyone, regardless of adequate documentation? Then we run into the trouble of a growing population of people who use these services but often are not burdened by the need to actually give anything back. They might do so, but they are not required to do so.
I wouldn't go as far as to suggest that all undocumented people aren't giving anything back, but since they are not required to, they may choose to use their income and care to provide for people that they care about. And often, those people end up being those who naturally fall outside of the U.S. jurisdiction. A legal system that always gives and takes nothing isn't sustainable, as many early governments quickly found out. There has to at least be some sort of payment, whether by taxes or by individual fees, to balance the cost of running the service. If we have people who are not obligated to pay those dues, we run into the issue of a system that gives more than it can handle, because its resources are at a deficit.
So yes, we can have such benefits... at a limit. Otherwise, we can continue with the current model of individualism that is admittedly very lax in terms of who can make use of it.
I got this. The FBI isn’t just a T-shirt- they are like police men that keep you and everyone safe. We need them, and they need a new building. We will make them a building- but the government won’t pay all the money at once. It will be over many years. The building isn’t $2billion- they will get people to build the building and design the building and sell them parts you need to make a building. The people who can’t pay rent are people who can’t work. Making a building makes work for people. People can get work and pay rent. The FBI gets a new building that they need.
Buildings can get old. They fall apart like a wet cookie. They can hurt people inside them. Sometimes buildings are too small for all the people that need to fit inside- like the FBI is a family and they have too many family members for their house so they need a new house. Their old house might not have the things they need- like an old house you can’t hook up a new better water heater wen the old one breaks down, except with big expensive thins needed for fighting bad guys and keeping you safe.
33% is a big percent. That is a lot of people who have trouble paying rent. That is bad. But 33% of America about 100 million people- the FBI protects 100% of America. So both problems are important- but the FBI problem effects a bigger number. That means that since more people need help- it is the thing that needs done first.
People who couldn’t pay rent in July, that is sad. But it is August now. July is in the past- it already happened you see. We can’t change things that already happened. We an try and fix things that haven’t happened yet. The government- they made some rules so that if people don’t pay their rent because of the big sick right now- they can be protected from losing their homes. It isn’t perfect and it needs work still- but they have other things they are doing to stop people from losing their homes.
Now this might be too complex to follow with cognitive difficulties- but... $2billion dollars split between 100 million people is... $20. One time. What do you think would help more- a new house for the policemen to be safe and fight bad guys- or giving people who can’t pay their rent $20? YES! Very good. Giving the police men a house! You got it champ!
The government has a hard problem. People can’t pay their rent- but if they let people go outside like normal- a lot of people will die, they’ll fall asleep and never ever wake up again. So the government is trying to find ways to keep everyone safe and also let them keep their houses and be able to eat. But it is hard and what makes one person happy might make another angry! So there are other ways besides paying everyone’s rent the government can try to help- but they probably won’t do most because lots of people are scared of a monster called a “socialist.” The thing is- socialists aren’t really monsters- sometimes they hurt people because they think it will make more people happy.
We don’t want to be socialists. But many people are so scared of being a socialist, that they won’t even consider anything they think sounds like a socialist would do. Like if you wouldn’t go swimming because you were afraid that you’d turn into an octopus because octopuses also swim (don’t worry swimming won’t make you an octopus. And helping people who need it without asking what they’ll do for you in return doesn’t make you a socialist. That’s called: “a decent human being.”)
As for the Garden- pretty short and simple but you need some background. Change scares lots of people. The world today can be very confusing to people, there are new faces and types of people and suddenly we are being asked to live with them and let them live their lives. Many people can’t keep up with change. Most of us are confused about things in the world right now, even what to call a person or what bathroom they can use or if it is ok to tell a joke or a story. If we include a certain kind of person, will we get told happy things for including them, or angry things for including them wrong or at all? We don’t know.
Most of us are taking it day by day and just being confused and working to keep up and understand as best we can. But many people- they can’t understand and aren’t willing to just go along with it. They don’t like being confused and instead of trying to understand, they want to make it all go away or push it to where they don’t have to think about it or deal with it. They want the world to make sense. So...
About 4 years ago a bunch of people who were scared and confused heard a loud and unpleasant man who promised to make the confusion stop. He said he’d get rid of all the things people were afraid of no matter what those things were, he said he’d build the greatest wall ever seen in the modern age and it wouldn’t cost a penny, he said he would scare away all the bad men who made people feel unsafe and he would get everyone to listen to him and give people money and be our servants!
Our leader and his wife are self centered twats, some of the greatest cons of the era- and they want to leave lots of pretty things so that someday when everyone forgot what twats they were, people in the far future will see those pretty things and say their names in a good way. The silly things that our leader says and mean things- those won’t be remembered in history usually. In books and stories they will only talk about the good things- and a pretty garden that people will like will be remembered as a good thing because people in the future won’t realize it was built while everyone was losing their house. Much like our president who thought that WW2 happened at a quarter century earlier and was ended by a flu. If you watch a movie called “idioracy” it will explain America 2016-2020(+?) very well.
Nevermind the holier than you tone, infantilizing, derision, insulting the intelligence of any who dares to disagree, at one point he straight up called me a Chinese bot for having to audacity to disagree, etc.
Ummmm.... the meme I am commenting on says: “explain it in small words, as though I need a cognitive exam.” So I wrote the reply based on the writing prompt I was given- as though it was intended for a small child or person with cognitive difficulties, as an instrument of humor.
As to the comment on Trump- that’s not really condescending to say- it’s not something most people like to hear- but what part isn’t true? His vote platform was literally regressive- “make America great again” and promising to repeal changes that had been made etc. there are plenty of very intelligent Trump supporters- but Even intelligent people are not immune to cognitive bias.
I don’t consider my comments on Trump supports condescending at all and am sorry if anyone does. I do not call them bad people, I do not call them fools or racists or any such thing- I defend them against such slander in fact and say, no- these are generally good people who like the rest of us find much about the modern world confusing. Someone promised to make it less confusing and lots f people liked the way that sounded better than figuring out the tough questions that progress brings.
As to be condescending to famousone- guilty. But I only talk to him like a child when he acts like a child. We’ve had more than a couple even discussions of late. I’m just a mirror. I can only reflect back what a person chooses to show. If people don’t like the reflection they see it isn’t the mirrors fault.
But your tone is not exclusive to this post, you damn well know "regressive"s connotations and association, and you do call Trump supporters fools and racists, you just pretty up behind "people looking different" or assume your own inherent correctness and superiority. There's a huge difference between "progress" and "progressive", you know.
And don't hide behind being a "mirror", you clearly just don't register that people who disagree with you might be coming from a good and reasonable place.
I think I'll side with famousone. It doesn't hold that you should treat famousone differently because he fails to grasp your points. It's unfair to treat a microbiologist like a child because they can't understand quantum physics, and a quantum physicist like a child because they can't memorize the specific interactions of all the different enzymes and polymers. He may have opinions that are at odds with the ones we have, but he also has a wildly different kind of expertise. His specific judgements are a result of the kind of information that we don't necessarily interact with all the time. He concludes that Trump isn't so bad because specific improvements have been made under this current administration, whereas we can conclude otherwise due to his current attempts at sabotaging mailed ballots. He can conclude that Trump's actions aren't completely detrimental because it protects certain individualistic freedoms, whereas we conclude that he's a madman. In whichever the direction, ...
... different evidence will always lead to differing conclusions. The difference in his evidence indicates to me that there are untouched aspects of the arguments that need to be touched.
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I don't believe that famousone is being ignorant or willfully intransigent. He hasn't yet denied all evidence, merely used his own evidence because social media arguments tend to exclude sources. And when you don't provide a direct source, the other person has every license to look up any other source on the topic and make their own conclusions.
1. @famousome- where exactly- please quote- where I allegedly call Trump supporters racist as a group?
2. @..... the thread- I treat famousone different because I expect more from him. He’s very bright, he has tremendous potential. If you feel like 400 years of reading you can go through our past discussions. I’ve said this before and shown it before- my goal is not to have people agree. On SOME threads yes. If you want to argue with me that helium is the heaviest element and you do not have CONCRETE proof I will take you to task should you insist on ignorance. If you want to PROPOSE you BELIEVE it MIGHT be the heaviest element and have compelling proof that can survive cross examination I may still not support your theory but I will respect it. When it comes to less concrete things like wether Ben Affleck is a good actor- we can disagree. We can discuss.
But understand that if you propose an opinion or theory and cannot provide any basis, or provide a basis for conclusion that can be challenged but not stand up- I’m going to go at it.
You will find many posts where I defend Trump against patently false accusations. My opinion of the man is low- but my opinion does not influence facts. I have defended posts raisin questions about scrutinizing mask laws- because while I support these laws and do not find them against freedom- I support QUESTIONING things- I do not support making conclusions about things before due diligence or in rash and dangerous acts on assumption.
The world NEEDS disagreement. Democracy demands it- freedom demands it as you aren’t truly free if you can do whatever you want; but simply because everything you happen to want to do falls within what is allowed. If you choose to go to bed at 9 every night like clockwork, and there is an 11pm curfew- to you- the world is free no? But that does not work in my book. People need a voice*, an appropriate outlet and forums for their thoughts and feelings and such.
There is nothing wrong with having an agenda. Everyone does. Advocate your agenda. If you don’t want to pay taxes say you don’t want to pay taxes. If you don’t want certain kinds of people around your neighborhood- say it. But taking ones agenda and then putting a flimsy wrapper of facts or justifications based in noble ideals or grand causes or social goods and such- that’s a major part of the mess we are in.
That goes all around. It’s well discussed and unpopular to say- but many popular liberal movements aren’t about some form of “equality” at their heart, or at the least many have many supporters who aren’t really about that even if they say. Often the agenda there is improving ones lot in life or chances as an individual, using a group to do it. The border- are we monkeys that are so territorial? No. An imaginary line- people say things like “sovereignty.” No. Go simpler. For most people what is that really about in simple terms? It’s about keeping people out who aren’t “their kind of people” whatever that may mean to the individual.
And this is something you’d have to go digging through walls of text for- but has been discussed many times. I ask famousone to define the logic, I challenge the facts or the process, the process or facts fall apart or are internally inconsistent. I ask famousone to explain the inconsistency and reconcile it- he either repeats previous things, takes a new tact, or starts talking about how I don’t want to listen.
I’m not interested in what he thinks? Quite the contrary. I’m very interested. Why would I spend 800 posts trying to work through his logic and ambiguities and gaps in my understanding of his logic if I weren’t interested? But- what I am MORE interested in than WHAT a person in thinks is HOW they think and WHY. What thought was going through your head when you gave a homeless man $10... were you thinking about your own hard times? Were you thinking “pfft. I won’t miss this money..” did you do it to make yourself feel good or to help them? So on. That’s more important than that you gave them money or not- WHY. And if a person can’t understand how they think- they can’t understand themselves. They’re not making choices they are reacting. Like a simple organism- stimulus response with nothing in between.
You don’t have to agree with what Mao did or Stalin or Churchill or Gandhi to follow their logic. You don’t need to view things from their perspective to see that wether you agree or not they acted pragmatically by and large. Sound and defensible logic applied to their decisions, generally consistent to their stated ideologies or goals. So wether I agree with those people or think one or more of them are pieces of garbage- I can’t fault their logic.
I can debate their morality or specifics of their arguments and such- we could exchange ideas and concepts- because you can make sense of it. Famousone has ideas I like and ones I don’t. That’s fine. Differing opinions isn’t where we get in to trouble. I dislike ignorance and thoughtlessness. When I see a bright person who I KNOW is capable of more and have seen it, fall into these pits- I get riled up. His opinions are his own to do with as he likes. Facts are not, and if one has an opinion that one cannot defend to simple standards- one needs to rework it or buttress it.
The politicians claimed to be far left, or socialist would be members of conservative parties in all other develped democracies.
And we aren't a democracy. We sure as fuck ain't Euro, so fuck off with that mighty white, colonialist bullshit.
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In general, the three things listed (unemployment support, paid maternity leave, and health care) are not required or even at the very least something that governments have to have. It is simply by the nature of how we want our morality to be, namely as altruistic as possible. Those three things are appealing and consistent with the idea that we should reduce overall suffering, but are not required to do so. However, those three things cannot be accomplished for everyone on the individual level, so it is morally consistent to expect the "warden of the people" to take steps to providing those options.
And don't hide behind being a "mirror", you clearly just don't register that people who disagree with you might be coming from a good and reasonable place.
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I don't believe that famousone is being ignorant or willfully intransigent. He hasn't yet denied all evidence, merely used his own evidence because social media arguments tend to exclude sources. And when you don't provide a direct source, the other person has every license to look up any other source on the topic and make their own conclusions.
2. @..... the thread- I treat famousone different because I expect more from him. He’s very bright, he has tremendous potential. If you feel like 400 years of reading you can go through our past discussions. I’ve said this before and shown it before- my goal is not to have people agree. On SOME threads yes. If you want to argue with me that helium is the heaviest element and you do not have CONCRETE proof I will take you to task should you insist on ignorance. If you want to PROPOSE you BELIEVE it MIGHT be the heaviest element and have compelling proof that can survive cross examination I may still not support your theory but I will respect it. When it comes to less concrete things like wether Ben Affleck is a good actor- we can disagree. We can discuss.