Politics Can we find some common ground with Trump/new right supporters? Do

[Seeds]

If Trump declares no wars or “liberal interventions” then he is a pretty good president imo.

Wars are sometimes necessary if it's to promote your values against extreme threats to them. And standard of living is also a pretty important thing to promote. Plenty of history's monsters never went to war with other countries but crippled and destroyed the livelihoods of their own citizens.

Your measure of success is highly inadequate.

 

[Crankyhawk]

That's only if their gst tax more than offsets welfare payments. If it doesn't they aren't net tax payers. And its net tax that matters.

That wasn’t what the other poster was saying.
Now for net tax do we get a bigger vote for bigger net tax?

 

[Ron The Bear]

He is proving that there is a lot of stupid out there that can be exploited and influenced.

Well *. Give the man a Nobel Prize.

 

[Gethelred]

Wars are sometimes necessary if it's to promote your values against extreme threats to them. And standard of living is also a pretty important thing to promote. Plenty of history's monsters never went to war with other countries but crippled and destroyed the livelihoods of their own citizens.

Your measure of success is highly inadequate.

You've twisted yourself into a pretzel there to say what you said in the first four words.

What does the rest add to the sentence, other than measly mouthed skirting around the issue marketing jargon?

 

[Kangaroos4eva]

As mentioned on another thread, it's incredible to think that in the past few years Labor is now the party with leadership stability and the Libs, Grens and Nats are virtually coalitions within themselves.

Libs issues are well documented, Greens are basically two parties with NSW Greens vs rest of Australia, while WA Nats seem to either 'go rogue' or 'maintain sensibility' depending on your viewpoint.

It's called politics, what goes around comes around. Factional infighting happens irregardless of the affiliation. The ALP will eventually turn on itself in some form or another because both major parties have lost their core principles and identities, some of it has been self-inflicted (Hawke v unions) versus global economic and geopolitical factors. The ALP and Liberals have increasingly become NPC parties since the end of Howard.

 

[CatFan79]

Why should the govt distribute income and not wealth?

The government shouldn't re-distribute income either if that's what you mean.

A lot of wealth accumulation is due to luck whereas wage income is due to work. If the govt has to take one it should be wealth rather than income as people always earn their income. They dont always earn wealth.

Just because you have no wealth doesn't mean others were just handed theirs.

Instead of expecting the government to steal other's wealth on your behalf how about go get a better job and learn how to save.

 

[Kangaroos4eva]

A huge problem the Left has at the moment - and I say this as someone on the left - is that in a lot of cases we simply don't have the argument anymore. We treat an argument as won - by us - and call anyone who wants to have the argument an 'ist': sexist, racist, homophobe, behind the times, climate change denier (you get the idea). It's largely due to laziness - "You're not worth arguing with!" being a cover for "I cannot be bothered arguing the point" - but in some cases it's due to fatigue; people having already argued that point before, in the past, without changing someone's mind, and being unwilling to commit to that experience again. People, by and large, do not like confrontation.

A necessary component of discourse is ensuring that you must argue the point every single time, to the best of your ability, without breaking the rules (using logical fallacies to win). This is the only way to ensure - if being correct is too lofty and speculative a goal - that you are not wrong.

If you ever see someone doing this, call them out for it. Tell them they're being lazy, completely and wholly intellectually lazy; by refusing to have the argument at all, you are absenting your view from the discourse, too above it to do much more than insult someone for having an opinion. Shits me to tears.

Us on the right like a good argument.

Interesting you call it laziness, there is certainly an element of that, but I always felt a problem with the left, in the realms of political debating, is the moral grandstanding and self-aggrandisation. "Look at me, I am standing up for downtrodden minorities, look at those rich white conservative oppressing the poor working class". Sorry, could not help myself.

The authoritarian elements of the current western Left often believe that they have much in common with those that fought for civil liberties in the 1950s and 1960s, you talk to these people in ANTIFA and they think that they are fighting for a worthy cause and leftist elements have often relied more on the emotional argument (not that this is necessarily a bad thing). I know I am going cop flak for this, but this is why women are typically found more on the left due to biology, their stance on human rights and more emotionally driven arguments, again, not necessarily a bad thing. An example of the emotion side of things going wrong on the extreme left is the use of -ism's as you pointed out earlier. Nazism carries a lot of historical and emotional weight, being called a Nazi is a horrible thing, but it has become a tool to emotionally blackmail or shame people until they agree with you.

Moral self-aggrandisation is not necessarily something new to the left, as is the right's (not all right-wing elements) seemingly colder realist approach to the world or their own version of moral grandstanding, but what some leftist variants have lost is the capacity to debate. You call it fatigue, I call it the bastardisation of sitting on a moral high chair and taking it to another level. Look at the reactions of the recent US elections, Republican voters are still stereotyped, rightly or wrongfully, as primarily being country bumpkins, while the Democrats were generally considered to be well-educated, from the East Coast and wealthier. Trump gained an extra level of ground support as a consequence of the Democrat aligned media going quite far in projecting the bumpkin image, starting with Palin and continuing with Trump and his supporters.

Some on the right are similar in sitting on a moral high chair, but they do it a bit differently, same with identity politics, but that's another argument. Right wing elements generally base their moral grandstanding via the general right-wing traits of traditionalism, a high appreciation of political realism, playing the nationalism v globalism card, national achievements and other general positive/negative right-wing aspects. However most right-wing variants have not taken this to the extreme like moderate leftist elements have in the contemporary age, with the exception with the few thousand Nazi's and genuine right-wing racists in the world.

Why has some leftist elements stopped debating and become increasingly authoritarian?

Media sensationalism, academia and education increasingly dominated by left-leaning theorists since the 1970s, including instilling the virtues of (radical) activism, the age of self-entitlement, the increasing lack of real issues to fight for in the West and authoritarian reactions by some on the left to right-wing criticisms/challenges of things like gender equality, migration, etc.

In saying all that, some of the best political discussions that I have ever been involved in have been with centre-left posters on this site and with my card-carrying socialist grandparents. Decent political discourse is not dead, but it is not what it used to be. Even on this board, however, my experiences have been quite enlightening and largely positive. The left and the right need to balance itself out via discourse before political centrists become extinct and we are left with something much worse in the long-term. Classical right-wing liberalism is an example of a centrist variant largely going the way of the dodo bird.

TBH, I feel a bit sorry for those that identify on the left and are actual decent people as you are increasingly being associated with extremist elements and there are plenty on my side of politics who are quick to associate those who are even moderately left with said extremist elements.

 

[Gethelred]

Us on the right like a good argument.

Interesting you call it laziness, there is certainly an element of that, but I always felt a problem with the left, in the realms of political debating, is the moral grandstanding and self-aggrandisation. "Look at me, I am standing up for downtrodden minorities, look at those rich white conservative oppressing the poor working class". Sorry, could not help myself.

See, I've never been of the opinion that either side of politics has any monopoly on the moral high ground, and I certainly do not think that being moral is better than being correct. More, my belief in equal opportunity, welfare, universal access to education etc is because by widening the pool of contributors - rather than confining it to merely the wealthy - we can improve much faster than if we didn't. For evidence of this, see the last century - the period of time in which we stopped ignoring the ideas and/or contributions of women and brown people - as a testament to what we can do when we provide all sufficient opportunity to become innovators.

That it is moral as well helps me to believe this, I have no doubt, but being correct is superior to being moral most of the time.

The authoritarian elements of the current western Left often believe that they have much in common with those that fought for civil liberties in the 1950s and 1960s, you talk to these people in ANTIFA and they think that they are fighting for a worthy cause and leftist elements have often relied more on the emotional argument (not that this is necessarily a bad thing). I know I am going cop flak for this, but this is why women are typically found more on the left due to biology, their stance on human rights and more emotionally driven arguments, again, not necessarily a bad thing. An example of the emotion side of things going wrong on the extreme left is the use of -ism's as you pointed out earlier. Nazism carries a lot of historical and emotional weight, being called a Nazi is a horrible thing, but it has become a tool to emotionally blackmail or shame people until they agree with you.

Given that you felt the need to include the catch "I know I'm going to cop flak for this", I think I'll do the same thing.

I know I'm going to cop flak for this, but while it's a huge issue with the left to merely treat an argument as already had and won, there are a number of arguments that have, indeed, been had and won by the left (whether they've truly 'won' is probably a subject for another time. Suffice to say, feminism has very much become more dominant than the previous overarching discourse, as has the civil rights movement, and until a new dominant discourse arises to dethrone or outargue these dominant strains of thought they're what I'd consider 'won' arguments). This is part of why, in some cases, those arguing the case of the left have gotten lazy; so used to being able to conclude that the argument has already been had, they refuse to confront a new argument or acknowledge new evidence, and they extend their previous arguments into what I call grey areas. Privilege is not as well proven as class or ethnicity based disadvantage, and nor does the research back it up, so when someone on the left tries to treat it as a done argument it drives me crazy.

But then, I view privilege as a smokescreen, cultivated and courted by the Murdoch press to distance left wing youth from their working class origins. A splintered left is a beatable one.

And I've always thought that the notion that the left have relied on the emotional side of reasoning as an ironic one, because the root cause of all right wing politics is fear. Fear of loss of identity, of change, of damage to kin and property, fear of violence. You name a right wing policy, and I'll tell you how it has its roots in fear.

If you ask anyone who is honest, they'll tell you that most of the time we use logic to tell us what we already thought, and to deny that which we already disliked or didn't want to believe.

Moral self-aggrandisation is not necessarily something new to the left, as is the right's (not all right-wing elements) seemingly colder realist approach to the world or their own version of moral grandstanding, but what some leftist variants have lost is the capacity to debate. You call it fatigue, I call it the bastardisation of sitting on a moral high chair and taking it to another level. Look at the reactions of the recent US elections, Republican voters are still stereotyped, rightly or wrongfully, as primarily being country bumpkins, while the Democrats were generally considered to be well-educated, from the East Coast and wealthier. Trump gained an extra level of ground support as a consequence of the Democrat aligned media going quite far in projecting the bumpkin image, starting with Palin and continuing with Trump and his supporters.

Some on the right are similar in sitting on a moral high chair, but they do it a bit differently, same with identity politics, but that's another argument. Right wing elements generally base their moral grandstanding via the general right-wing traits of traditionalism, a high appreciation of political realism, playing the nationalism v globalism card, national achievements and other general positive/negative right-wing aspects. However most right-wing variants have not taken this to the extreme like moderate leftist elements have in the contemporary age, with the exception with the few thousand Nazi's and genuine right-wing racists in the world.

Why has some leftist elements stopped debating and become increasingly authoritarian?

Echo chambers are what I'd blame if you asked me.

The internet age has had such a huge effect on radicalization; what once would've been a thought kept to oneself is now anonymously broadcast across the globe, and what would've been a completely scattered mess of individuals can now coalesce into a political movement whose passion is only rivaled by the activism of the seventies.

Discourse - being a term I use rather often - means the entire collective reasoning in a particular area; any individual who puts forth an opinion forms a component to the discourse. Where once, these isolated individuals could not meet and exchange ideas, now they can and they do, but in isolated forums and chatrooms people are normalised to a particular frame of reference that is reinforced over time. Just as we're seeing increased presence of actual Nazis - as in, people who genuinely believe that nazism wasn't so bad and would be a good political theory for modern times - so too are we seeing increased left win violent anarchists.

As a note, I'd consider myself to be a soft anarchist; I do not trust organisations (public or private) to do what's right ahead of what's in their own interest, regardless of what the rules are, but by the same token I do not believe in armed overthrow of the state. Violence, particularly revolutionary violence, has a habit of affecting the poor and the weak over the wealthy and the powerful, and we need those people to supply the food and services - and, you know, the ideas - for the rest of humanity. Again, that it's moral is soothing, but isn't the point.

Media sensationalism, academia and education increasingly dominated by left-leaning theorists since the 1970s, including instilling the virtues of (radical) activism, the age of self-entitlement, the increasing lack of real issues to fight for in the West and authoritarian reactions by some on the left to right-wing criticisms/challenges of things like gender equality, migration, etc.

In saying all that, some of the best political discussions that I have been involved in have been on this site with centre-left posters and with my card-carrying socialist grandparents. Decent political discourse is not dead, but it is not what it used to be. Even on this board, however, my experiences have been quite enlightening and largely positive. Left and the right need to balance itself out via discourse before political centrists become extinct and we are left with something much worse in the long-term.

TBH, I feel a bit sorry for those that identify on the left and are actual decent people as you are increasingly being associated with extremist elements and there are plenty on my side of politics who are quick to associate those who are even moderately left with said extremist elements.

Echo chambers again, coupled with anonymity.

 

[geelong_crazy26]

Why should the govt distribute income and not wealth? A lot of wealth accumulation is due to luck whereas wage income is due to work. If the govt has to take one it should be wealth rather than income as people always earn their income. They dont always earn wealth.

The government should neither redistribute income or wealth as both are forms of socialism. However wealth is very easy to transfer between countries, people don't have to invest capital in Australia. A persons labour is usually much harder to transfer overseas than their wealth which is why its more important to keep taxes on wealth low.

 

[Kangaroos4eva]

See, I've never been of the opinion that either side of politics has any monopoly on the moral high ground, and I certainly do not think that being moral is better than being correct. More, my belief in equal opportunity, welfare, universal access to education etc is because by widening the pool of contributors - rather than confining it to merely the wealthy - we can improve much faster than if we didn't. For evidence of this, see the last century - the period of time in which we stopped ignoring the ideas and/or contributions of women and brown people - as a testament to what we can do when we provide all sufficient opportunity to become innovators.

That it is moral as well helps me to believe this, I have no doubt, but being correct is superior to being moral most of the time.

Agree, different strands, same evil. Morality is a lens, a tool to form our self-perceptions of the world at large. The key is to be aware of our own moral standing when going about our business. Sure, but humanity have long been innovators since our evolution over the eons; you could also easily argue that industrialisation and enlightenment ideals have driven humanity's improvements over the last two centuries, but I agree the establishment of the basic human rights and non-extremist political philosophies, liberty, citizenship, equality, social-democratic ideals, etc have definitely improved humanity as a whole.

Given that you felt the need to include the catch "I know I'm going to cop flak for this", I think I'll do the same thing.

I know I'm going to cop flak for this, but while it's a huge issue with the left to merely treat an argument as already had and won, there are a number of arguments that have, indeed, been had and won by the left (whether they've truly 'won' is probably a subject for another time. Suffice to say, feminism has very much become more dominant than the previous overarching discourse, as has the civil rights movement, and until a new dominant discourse arises to dethrone or outargue these dominant strains of thought they're what I'd consider 'won' arguments). This is part of why, in some cases, those arguing the case of the left have gotten lazy; so used to being able to conclude that the argument has already been had, they refuse to confront a new argument or acknowledge new evidence, and they extend their previous arguments into what I call grey areas. Privilege is not as well proven as class or ethnicity based disadvantage, and nor does the research back it up, so when someone on the left tries to treat it as a done argument it drives me crazy.

But then, I view privilege as a smokescreen, cultivated and courted by the Murdoch press to distance left wing youth from their working class origins. A splintered left is a beatable one.

Fair enough.

Sure, fighting the excesses of complete capitalism via social democracy, feminist rights, minority rights etc. but I would argue that in a lot cases, they are building upon the basic rights established by classical liberals and conservatives like Locke, Hobbes, John Stuart Mill, Burke (property rights) and even Rousseau, to a degree via the social contract. True liberalism and the fight for individual rights is often found more in the realm of the centre as, generally, the more left you get, the more of a focus on equality rather than the individual, but I am getting way off topic. I'll just state I agree with your points about the validity of the left being correct, to an extent.

Interesting theory re privilege and Murdoch. I have largely stayed clear of the Murdoch stuff, so I just don't know enough on the subject to challenge or reinforce Murdoch related theories.

And I've always thought that the notion that the left have relied on the emotional side of reasoning as an ironic one, because the root cause of all right wing politics is fear. Fear of loss of identity, of change, of damage to kin and property, fear of violence. You name a right wing policy, and I'll tell you how it has its roots in fear.

If you ask anyone who is honest, they'll tell you that most of the time we use logic to tell us what we already thought, and to deny that which we already disliked or didn't want to believe.

Echo chambers are what I'd blame if you asked me.

The internet age has had such a huge effect on radicalization; what once would've been a thought kept to oneself is now anonymously broadcast across the globe, and what would've been a completely scattered mess of individuals can now coalesce into a political movement whose passion is only rivaled by the activism of the seventies.

Discourse - being a term I use rather often - means the entire collective reasoning in a particular area; any individual who puts forth an opinion forms a component to the discourse. Where once, these isolated individuals could not meet and exchange ideas, now they can and they do, but in isolated forums and chatrooms people are normalised to a particular frame of reference that is reinforced over time. Just as we're seeing increased presence of actual Nazis - as in, people who genuinely believe that nazism wasn't so bad and would be a good political theory for modern times - so too are we seeing increased left win violent anarchists.

As a note, I'd consider myself to be a soft anarchist; I do not trust organisations (public or private) to do what's right ahead of what's in their own interest, regardless of what the rules are, but by the same token I do not believe in armed overthrow of the state. Violence, particularly revolutionary violence, has a habit of affecting the poor and the weak over the wealthy and the powerful, and we need those people to supply the food and services - and, you know, the ideas - for the rest of humanity. Again, that it's moral is soothing, but isn't the point.

Echo chambers again, coupled with anonymity.

Yes and no. The right version of identity politics is generally fear-based. You can link fear to almost anything political if you had the time. If you are presenting the argument that all right-wing policies are inherently-fear based is fallacious as that argument does not account for the political philosophies and motivations that have sparked the major right wing movements. The modern right-wing was formed to correct the issues associated with the absolute monarchy, which some of the modern left altered to correct the excesses of the absolute capitalism of the early 19th century. Burke's insistence on property rights, John Stuart's insistence on social liberty and Hobbe's social contract, the right of the individual and the equality of man in the age of absolute monarchies; I doubt that you could seriously argue about fear being the primary aspect that inherently shaped modern right-wing liberalism (which is found in neo-conservatism more so nowadays) and conservative variants.

In saying all that, you are not completely wrong in regards to fear and the right; many of the West's social democratic policies were instituted by centrist and right wing governments in the early to mid 20th century motivated by fears about communist infiltration of the unions and other issues related to Marxism.

Agreed about the internet.


Disagree about there being a decent increase in the presence of actual Nazi's. The KKK's numbers are less than 5,000, the Aryan Brotherhood less than 30k in the USA (mostly in prison). Look at their supposed rally numbers, there's barely any of them and they are always outnumbered by the socialists, anarchists and anarcho-communists in ANTIFA. I can cite the modern political power that socialism still holds in the world, the rise of ANTIFA and the presence of the far left in academia as an example of the rise of the far-left. Nazism has been on the continual decline since 1945, true fascism died with Franco's regime (you can cite military dictatorships, but they are a bit different to true Fascism).

The Nazi's will forever been on the fringe, in youtube comments sections, etc., they will never hold meaningful political power ever again and their numbers, whilst debatable, are nothing to be feared. Nazism has been exposed for the fallacy it is and its crimes have long seen Nazism being relegated to the utter fringes of society. Nazism was on the fringes, albiet with a decent sized supporter base, even when anti-semitism was at its peak in the West in the 1930s. Communism and the hardline leftist elements still have meaningful political power, even socialist-lites sit in the American congress at present; you can still wave the USSR's flag, but you cannot wave the flag of Nazi Germany, guess which regime killed more.

Interesting, anarchism is an understudied political philosophy, I only touched on its utter basics during my political science degree. Fair enough, I differ a little bit as a liberal conservative. I agree with the need for a high level of individual freedom, but ultimately I believe that a strong state is needed for law and order and that sometimes we must sacrifice our own self-interests for the preservation of the state that ultimately protects our individual freedoms from tyranny (war), etc.

 

[its free real estate]

The problem with Western politics is the overwhelming obsession with the Holocaust, as if that was the only time in history one bunch of people killed another bunch of people en masse.

 

[Gethelred]

Agree, different strands, same evil. Morality is a lens, a tool to form our self-perceptions of the world at large. The key is to be aware of our own moral standing when going about our business. Sure, but humanity have long been innovators since our evolution over the eons; you could also easily argue that industrialisation and enlightenment ideals have driven humanity's improvements over the last two centuries, but I agree the establishment of the basic human rights and non-extremist political philosophies, liberty, citizenship, equality, social-democratic ideals, etc have definitely improved humanity as a whole.

You could certainly make that argument, but as much as it's been improvements in the way we do things it's also been in including more members of the population in each step of the process. So much work was considered gendered, or was given over to slaves, that the majority of the thinking or planning roles were provided to too few - namely, mostly older men.

Now, we've a vastly superior spread of management roles apportioned across the board based on merit rather than wealth and lineage.

Yes and no. The right version of identity politics is generally fear-based. You can link fear to almost anything political if you had the time. If you are presenting the argument that all right-wing policies are inherently-fear based is fallacious as that does not account for the political philosophies and motivations that have sparked the major right wing movements. The modern right-wing was formed to correct the issues associated with the absolute monarchy, which some of the modern left altered to correct the excesses of the absolute capitalism of the early 19th century. Burke's insistence on property rights, John Stuart's insistence on social liberty and Hobbe's social contract, the right of the individual and the equality of man in the age of absolute monarchies; I doubt that you could seriously argue about fear being the primary aspect that inherently shaped modern right-wing liberalism (which is found in neo-conservatism more so nowadays) and conservative variants."

In saying all that, you are not completely wrong in regards to fear and the right; many of the West's social democratic policies were instituted by centrist and right wing governments in the early to mid 20th century motivated by fears about communist infiltration of the unions and other issues related to Marxism.

I'm not saying that it's necessarily saying that it's a pertinent analogy always, merely that both sides could probably do without slinging the "you're being emotional/not thinking" thing at each other.

On one hand, it strikes me as rank hypocrisy when the right makes a claim towards logic and smears the left as emotional/nonsensical, because logic is a system that, at best, ensures that you are not wrong instead of right. Also, logic does not make one infallible, nor does it dispose of those irritating little cognitive biases all of us possess; in the same way neoconservatism is seen as completely logical by some, so too do I find it illogical by the means it repressess and dismisses those it considers without merit; the poor, the weak, and the foolish.

And that, too, is subject to my own biases; hypocrisy alone does not make you wrong. I could be the biggest chain smoker in the world, but force my partner to stop because it will kill them.

From the perspective of the formation of conservatism and liberalism as political/philosophical traditions, I have confidence in the theorists ability to present their arguments free of the scent of fear. However, the ability to make an argument does not entail that, when rendered down to the simplest level, the majority of right wing policies in a modern context can be boiled down to a fear of governmental overreach, a fear of a lack of control, a fear of change, and a fear of losing identity/culture. Theorists in the late nineteenth century be damned, it is in the implementation and the language their modern incarnations use that twists their legacies into fearful parodies.

Disagree about there being a decent increase in the presence of actual Nazi's. The KKK's numbers are less than 5,000, the Aryan Brotherhood less than 30k in the USA (mostly in prison). Look at their supposed rally numbers, there's barely any of them and they are always outnumbered by the socialists, anarchists and anarcho-communists in ANTIFA. I can cite the modern political power that socialism still holds in the world, the rise of ANTIFA and the presence of the far left in academia as an example of the rise of the far-left in the West. Nazism has been on the continual decline since 1945, true fascism died with Franco's regime (you can cite military dictatorships, but they are a bit different to true Fascism).

The Nazi's will forever been on the fringe, in youtube comments sections, etc., they will never hold meaningful political power ever again and their numbers, whilst debatable, are nothing to be feared. Nazism has been exposed for the fallacy it is and its crimes have long been relegated to the utter fringes of society. Nazism was on the fringes even when anti-semitism was at its peak in the West in the 1930s. Communism and the hardline leftist elements still have meaningful political power, even socialist-lites sit in the American congress at present, you can still wave the USSR's flag, but you cannot wave the flag of Nazi Germany, guess which regime killed more.

Interesting, anarchism is an understudied political philosophy, I only touched on its utter basics during my political science degree. Fair enough, I differ a little bit as a liberal conservative. I agree with the need for a high level of individual freedom, but ultimately I believe that a strong state is needed for law and order and that sometimes we must sacrifice our own self-interests for the preservation of the state that ultimately protects our individual freedoms from tyranny (war), etc.

There's a marked increase in all fringe movements, so perhaps it's not so much an increase in actual people subscribing to an ideology as an increase in organisation as well as communication facilitating the impression that there is more of them.

As for there being definitively more left wing radicals than right wing, that's probably true. Thatcher and Reagan - and Bush Senior- merely repressed socialism, despite claiming as they did it died in the collapse of the Soviet Union and the rise of USA style imperial democracy. Because there are more of them - and the internet leading to greater radicalization as marginal groups normalise new members before driving them further and further towards fundamentalism, coupled with greater organisation within and across echo chambers to allow like minded people to associate across huge geographical distances - they are better able to be organised, better funded, more motivated, and never truly killed off. The end of the Cold War was not the end of Socialism, merely USSR styled Communism.

I don't know enough about ANTIFA to comment on them, or defend/disagree with their actions. I haven't posted in the 'Is it right to punch a NAZI' thread, because I don't think it is right to use violence to change someone's mind, because it doesn't work. I've had a few people try to change my mind that way, and if anything it got my back up even further. I do not see violence as a solution to a problem, I see it as the end of one; unless you're willing to escalate a situation to its conclusion, violence is meaningless.

I've not particularly researched anarchism, largely because it is above and beyond all else a futile philosophy; when confronted with chaos, what do humans do? We band together, forming social groups, and we find ways and means to survive and then to thrive again. It actually is something that gives me the greatest hope, really. What it means in terms of practicality is that I do not trust business in any shape or form, I viciously fight governmental attempts at encroaching on my civil liberties, and I do my best towards existing the way I want to exist.

 

[Seeds]

The government should neither redistribute income or wealth as both are forms of socialism. However wealth is very easy to transfer between countries, people don't have to invest capital in Australia. A persons labour is usually much harder to transfer overseas than their wealth which is why its more important to keep taxes on wealth low.

Your first point is a seperate topic. In an ideal world there wouldnt be need to redistribute any. But given we live in a world where we require the state at the very least to provide defence and police and given not everyone has income or wealth to pay for this equally then we implicitly have wealth distribution as only some members of the public can pay for it whilst others cant.

You make a reasonable point on the difficulties with tracing and taxing wealth compared to income. But those difficulties are now being overcome with technology and global institutional structures. Governments now set pension payments based off wealth so it is possible to measure wealth now as the government is already doing it. The formation of global institution structures to deal with overseas assets is also being developed so wealth and profits overseas can be measured and taxed if the owner of that wealth ever visits his home country. Sure a wealthy person could decide to leave, take all their wealth to a country without wealth taxes and never come back to their home country until after they die. But are tax benefits really worth losing your connections to your family, friends and the land you grew up in? In the end very few would take up the offer to leave and never return just for tax benefits.

 

[Seeds]

The government shouldn't re-distribute income either if that's what you mean.



Just because you have no wealth doesn't mean others were just handed theirs.

Instead of expecting the government to steal other's wealth on your behalf how about go get a better job and learn how to save.

I paid 150 thousand dollars in taxes last year. My wife paid 60 thousand. How exactly am I stealing others wealth?

 

[swingdog]

I've not particularly researched anarchism, largely because it is above and beyond all else a futile philosophy; when confronted with chaos, what do humans do? We band together, forming social groups, and we find ways and means to survive and then to thrive again. It actually is something that gives me the greatest hope, really. What it means in terms of practicality is that I do not trust business in any shape or form, I viciously fight governmental attempts at encroaching on my civil liberties, and I do my best towards existing the way I want to exist.

You should, because what you’ve described is a form of anarchism. Anarchism isn’t chaos. That’s a misconception. Start with Kropotkin.


On iPhone using BigFooty.com mobile app

 

[Opts]

Well ****. Give the man a Nobel Prize.

Why not? Obama got one for doing less for world peace than Trump. Trump could cure world starvation and the left still wouldn't be satisfied.

 

[its free real estate]

If Trump declares no wars or “liberal interventions” then he is a pretty good president imo.

Houellebecq agrees!

Trump is pursuing and amplifying the policy of disengagement initiated by Obama; this is very good news for the rest of the world.

https://harpers.org/archive/2019/01/donald-trump-is-a-good-president/

 

[Opts]

The government shouldn't re-distribute income either if that's what you mean.



Just because you have no wealth doesn't mean others were just handed theirs.

Instead of expecting the government to steal other's wealth on your behalf how about go get a better job and learn how to save.

His beliefs are standard of the leftist ideology. They don't have money because they are either unable to get it or too lazy to get it. Therefore, those who do have it should have it removed from them so that everyone is happy. It's called jealousy and is the reason why socialism exists.

 

[Seeds]

Why not? Obama got one for doing less for world peace than Trump. Trump could cure world starvation and the left still wouldn't be satisfied.

Um world starvation has mostly already been cured thanks to the spread of western liberal democratic institutions to the developing world, the rise in global agriculture trade and the spread of advancements of agriculutural technologies from the west. Trump wants to undo all these things. He wants an end to globalism and seems to have little concern for authoritarians. He actually seems to like them more than democratic leaders. The left (and especially the educated centre) is pissed because of this. Come up with a better example and not one that is opposite to Trumps values.

 

[Seeds]

His beliefs are standard of the leftist ideology. They don't have money because they are either unable to get it or too lazy to get it. Therefore, those who do have it should have it removed from them so that everyone is happy. It's called jealousy and is the reason why socialism exists.

Dude Im anti socialism (probably far more than you are) and my income is in the top 1 percent. A wealth tax is far more just then a wage tax. So stop speaking utter garbage that you know nothing about.

 

[CatFan79]

Dude Im anti socialism (probably far more than you are) and my income is in the top 1 percent. A wealth tax is far more just then a wage tax. So stop speaking utter garbage that you know nothing about.

So tax earners at a very high rate then penalise them further for saving and accumulating? Is that your genius 'non-socialist' plan?

We should be encouraging wealth to be re-invested in the free market. The government does not need more money, it needs to stop wasting what it already gets!