The Myth of the Benevolent Left

originally posted by: Loadstain
a reply to: Quetzalcoatl14

Look at Baltimore, Detroit, Washington DC etc. The left have been in charge of those cities for over 50 years. How well have their policies helped the poor ?

Imagine how bad it would be if they weren't there.

originally posted by: DBCowboy
a reply to: CharlieSpeirs

But there is a valid point to be made.

I've often been told that I am uncaring, simply because I don't adhere to a specific ideology.

Without even knowing what I've done or what I do, I have been labeled as uncaring and selfish. Simply based on ideology.

Therefore, I felt the OP had merit.

Do you not realise the OP is doing exactly what you're accusing others of doing?

How you find merit in something that is using the same tactics as those you oppose is beyond me.

Again I ask where the world’s great right wing government that thrives so much?

Nowhere, unless you want to think about Nazi Germany, or Fascist Italy. And we know how they turned out.


Maybe the southern US before the civil right era


Black people were doing great then right?

article from 1981

The Marxist/Corporatist was alive and well in the old USSR

a reply to: CharlieSpeirs

Someone once asked me what was the solution to having smaller government.

I said, you starve it.

Instead of enabling a person to go on food stamps, you feed him and help him feed himself.

Instead of promoting government housing, you shelter them and help them to live freely, not by the whim of government.

Promoting government welfare is abdicating responsibility.

a reply to: LesMisanthrope

I love this OP.

Compassion is selective on the left. There is nothing genuine about it.

a reply to: Willtell

Again I ask where the world’s great right wing government that thrives so much?

Would Saudi Arabia be applicable? Or is that too conservative...?

originally posted by: Willtell

originally posted by: Loadstain
a reply to: Quetzalcoatl14

Look at Baltimore, Detroit, Washington DC etc. The left have been in charge of those cities for over 50 years. How well have their policies helped the poor ?

Imagine how bad it would be if they weren't there.

Imagine how much better it would be if they weren't there.

This is why things are getting worse not better.

When public policy produces undesirable results, results that are contrary to the intentions of the policy makers. Instead of reducing the intervention, the very failure is widely viewed as evidence of the need for additional more invasive interventionist policies.

You know the Einstein quote, what would be the sane thing to do?

I'm waiting for the world’s great right-wing government.


ALL of European governments have common sense left wing health care and other left wing ideas that the people appreciate


They take care of their citizens; they don’t leave them starving in the street


Sure these governments aren’t perfect but at least they try to help the downtrodden people amongst them


right wing doctrine of just: let em die is certainly not benevolent

I think they call that cruelty, selfishness.

originally posted by: greencmp

originally posted by: Willtell

originally posted by: Loadstain
a reply to: Quetzalcoatl14

Look at Baltimore, Detroit, Washington DC etc. The left have been in charge of those cities for over 50 years. How well have their policies helped the poor ?

Imagine how bad it would be if they weren't there.

Imagine how much better it would be if they weren't there.

This is why things are getting worse not better.

When public policy produces undesirable results, results that are contrary to the intentions of the policy makers. Instead of reducing the intervention, the very failure is widely viewed as evidence of the need for additional more invasive interventionist policies.

You know the Einstein quote, what would be the sane thing to do?

Please, show me where right wing dogma works

Even in America they gave THE WHITE veterans great help in housing after WWII and helped them join the middle class with the GI bill

Of course they didn't do the same for the BLACK VETERANS, they were excluded from that GOVERNMENT PROGRAM

Because THEY WERE BLACK.

I think is was primarily LEFT WING people who pointed this out and at least tried to fight it.

Nobody's perfect

a reply to: Willtell

right-wing governments are hard to establish because they always get infiltrated by left wing operatives

the only thing close might be some rural areas with very limited government interference and no authoritarianism

successful left wing establishments need massive authoritarian policies to function

therefore, all authoritarian policies are left wing based

originally posted by: Willtell
I'm waiting for the world’s great right-wing government.


ALL of European governments have common sense left wing health care and other left wing ideas that the people appreciate


They take care of their citizens; they don’t leave them starving in the street


Sure these governments aren’t perfect but at least they try to help the downtrodden people amongst them


right wing doctrine of just: let em die is certainly not benevolent

I think they call that cruelty, selfishness.

This is where understanding breaks down.

You are beginning with the specious premise that left wing government is good.

Yet, you are asserting that right wing government is bad.

Can we agree that government can be bad as a starting point?

If government can be bad, might not the problems that we see be the result of the policies of government?

Wouldn't less government (left or right wing) be the logical conclusion?

a reply to: xuenchen

Right wing governments are hard to establish because nobody wants em.

originally posted by: Willtell

originally posted by: greencmp

originally posted by: Willtell

originally posted by: Loadstain
a reply to: Quetzalcoatl14

Look at Baltimore, Detroit, Washington DC etc. The left have been in charge of those cities for over 50 years. How well have their policies helped the poor ?

Imagine how bad it would be if they weren't there.

Imagine how much better it would be if they weren't there.

This is why things are getting worse not better.

When public policy produces undesirable results, results that are contrary to the intentions of the policy makers. Instead of reducing the intervention, the very failure is widely viewed as evidence of the need for additional more invasive interventionist policies.

You know the Einstein quote, what would be the sane thing to do?

Please, show me where right wing dogma works

Even in America they gave THE WHITE veterans great help in housing after WWII and helped them join the middle class with the GI bill

Of course they didn't do the same for the BLACK VETERANS, they were excluded from that GOVERNMENT PROGRAM

Because THEY WERE BLACK.

I think is was primarily LEFT WING people who pointed this out and at least tried to fight it.

Nobody's perfect

Slavery was enforced by government. Slavery is not natural. It was only when government was prevented from enforcing it that it naturally disappeared.

Most of the logic surrounding welfare presumes the incompetence of its beneficiaries, this was actually the very same attitude which was widely held by slave owners and many slaves alike.

Since blacks couldn't fend for themselves in western civilization as free individuals, it was the white man's burden to look after their needs.

How does this logic differ from yours exactly?

a reply to: greencmp

A logical conclusion would be, since about 7 billion people can NOT, by no means not be ruled and regulated to some degree, to first answer this question:

Who is supposed to rule and lead, as a politician, and why , by what kind of justification, would that particular person be the one who can rule and lead best?

a reply to: Willtell

The point is that there seems to be a lot of talk about caring and not a lot of doing about caring.

Conservatives? They don't talk about programs because they believe that people should have the freedom to do it themselves. Self reliance.

If someone needs help, by all means, help them. But there is a difference between helping someone and nanny-stating them to death.

a reply to: MystikMushroom

If the rich don't want more rich people and they only want you to believe that you too can get rich? The why are there more rich people? Why is there so many 'new money" types around? Musicians, actors, athletes, inventors, all over the place?

Seems to me that many learn the process and discipline necessary and combined with a little good fortune make it every day?

Sorry, but your premise is way off.

originally posted by: Willingly
a reply to: greencmp

A logical conclusion would be, since about 7 billion people can NOT, by no means not be ruled and regulated to some degree, to first answer this question:

Who is supposed to rule and lead, as a politician, and why , by what kind of justification, would that particular person be the one who can rule and lead best?

Your premise opens with the certitude of the indispensability of government.

I am trying to make a point that falls below the qualifications for consideration under your world view.

a reply to: LesMisanthrope

Give me a particular constitution of some country/nation to study it for about six weeks in a row, and I'm able to tell you what are the flaws in it and the good points. No need to have a law-school degree to do that, if one is not too stupid and "over"-educated, at least that applies for me.

Yes, that's how confidend I am. Guess why.

Bill O'Reilly says poverty hasn't budged since 1965 despite 'trillions' spent

www.politifact.com...

As usual, of course he was proven wrong.

• The poverty rate has fallen even further if you start counting a few years before the Great Society began. Between 1959 and 1962, the poverty rate ranged between 20 and 22 percent. If you compare that level to 2009, poverty declined by an even steeper rate -- by more than one-third.

• Poverty among the elderly has plummeted. In 1967, about 30 percent of seniors were below the poverty line. That was down to 13.2 percent by 2008 -- a reduction by more than half.

One of Johnson’s greatest legislative achievements -- Medicare, the federal health care program for those 65 years and over -- helped lower elderly poverty, as did Social Security, a program that started under President Franklin D. Roosevelt but which Johnson enhanced with legislation in 1965 and 1967. A subsequent law enacted in 1973 began automatic, annual cost-of-living adjustments for Social Security beneficiaries. To the extent that Medicaid also helps poor older Americans, that has helped as well.

• Certain subgroups have seen steep drops in poverty over the same period. Poverty among blacks was 55 percent in 1959 and 41 percent in 1966. By 2009, the rate had fallen to 25.9 percent. For black single moms without a father present, the poverty rate fell from 70.6 percent in 1959 and 65.3 in 1966 to 39.8 percent in 2009.

• Alternate measurements of poverty show even steeper declines than the official statistics. A number of statisticians led by Douglas Besharov -- a University of Maryland scholar previously with the conservative American Enterprise Institute -- have come up with a more detailed measure of poverty that they say is more accurate than the official government statistic. Their alternative statistic includes factors ignored in the official statistics but which help poor Americans make it from day to day.

So left wing programs have worked...certainly not enough but they have substantially assisted in lowering poverty of Americans.