Far-left Progressivism

a reply to: ChaoticOrder

I think it all comes down to freedom.

Everyone wants it. Everyone.

But some interpret freedom differently than others.

On the one side, you have people who want the freedom to self-determine, the freedom to succeed or fail on their own merits. The freedom to determine your own future.

Others want the freedom from responsibility. They want the freedom from worry about failure. Those that want the freedom from responsibility place the onus on government. They defer to authority. They want to be taken care of.

a reply to: dfnj2015

I may not agree with you on many things, but you are right on - "The lobbyists RULE this country" (let me change that "they rule most of the world.") I believe in capitalism, but I also believe that money have no place in politics and government, separating the two at this point is almost impossible. The problem is that those invisible hands in power always try to divide us so that we would ignore them.

originally posted by: DBCowboy
a reply to: ChaoticOrder

I think it all comes down to freedom.

Everyone wants it. Everyone.

I don't want freedom for the CEOs to be able to create cartels and monopolies fleecing the workers into abject poverty.

a reply to: ChaoticOrder

It should be noted that most Socialists in the country are actually Democratic Socialists and not pure Socialists. Which is a combination of capitalism and socialism. A safety net in case you fail, but you have the freedom to aspire to greater things than just the bare minimum of the safety net.

The government may even decide what you can and cannot eat to keep people healthy

You mean like the government telling you what recreational drugs you can and cannot take?

and of course they are always implemented by liberal politicians

Which was implemented by a conservative.

One should ask themselves, if the left is so in favor of freedom and liberty and letting people do what they want, why are they so attracted to nanny state policies?

Why do conservatives want to tell women how to control their reproductive rights?

They worship their leaders in communist nations, in NK they have pictures of their all glorious supreme leader everywhere.

We are a Republic. North Korea is a dictatorship. That is an apples to oranges comparison. PLUS it is currently the Republican President who seems more infatuated with himself than actually implementing real policy change.

I feel like after having read your OP that you live in a rather large glass house and are throwing some rather large throws in spite of this.

a reply to: dfnj2015

That does make sense, extreme problems need extreme solutions and nobody can deny that we have an extreme problem with corporate lobbyists owning politicians.
an extremely liberal solution may be the only way to fix the problem and take our country back from the corporations.

a reply to: dfnj2015

Then you have the freedom to unionize, to strike, to boycott.

originally posted by: joemoe
a reply to: dfnj2015

I may not agree with you on many things, but you are right on - "The lobbyists RULE this country" (let me change that "they rule most of the world.") I believe in capitalism, but I also believe that money have no place in politics and government, separating the two at this point is almost impossible. The problem is that those invisible hands in power always try to divide us so that we would ignore them.

So you really are a radical leftist because you "believe that money have no place in politics and government.". The change you are suggesting is extremely radical. By suggesting that many people would label you a "radical subversive" trying to take away the American people's freedom to use their money any way they please.

a reply to: DBCowboy

Lol!!! Yeah, you would think that would be the answer to all our problems. Enter the 30 hour work week. Problem solved.

a reply to: dfnj2015

If someone told you that life was easy, then they lied to you.

originally posted by: DBCowboy
a reply to: dfnj2015

Then you have the freedom to unionize, to strike, to boycott.

Tell that to the Wal-Mart employees. Oh wait, you can't Wal-Mart will fire anyone who starts talking unions.

a reply to: ChaoticOrder

Well my goodness. Far right is running 33 states, the house, the senate, the presidency, and judicials. Why are you so unhappy and dissatisfied? Because we and Obama are still alive?

originally posted by: DBCowboy
a reply to: dfnj2015

If someone told you that life was easy, then they lied to you.

I would agree with you if we had free-markets capable of wringing out inefficiencies. But you seem to live in la-la land if you think workers could organize in this country and somehow wrestle the power back away from the people at the top.

I'm sure you are smart person and have great ideas. But it is pure delusion to think workers can self-organize. Only the power of government is capable for restoring some equality back to this country. And thing is you can argue as much as you want. And I'm sure you could argue me under the table. But the simple facts remain:



The facts do not support your way of thinking. The facts have a liberal bias. The workers in this country have no power for whatever reason even though you seem to think they do. The workers will not organize and simply do not have enough money to buy influence. The lobbyist have all the money. Money talks, everything you post is BS.

Sorry, nothing will change and the workers will continue to take it up the butt.

a reply to: MOMof3

Great post. I agree with you completely.

a reply to: dfnj2015

It is funny the far-left always label me "Right" and the far-Right think I'm "Left", that is how I know I'm pretty much somewhere in the Center. Lol. The futurist in me always believe that in the future we will most likely get rid of "Money" all together. When technology are advanced enough that we can use nanobots and robots to break down and build anything we desire, perhaps our pursuit of happiness and freedom will not involve "money". But until then Capitalism is a stop gap, I just wish "TPTB", "Corporations" and "Special interests" did not have so much sway on our politicians and government.

a reply to: dfnj2015

There is always going to be wealth inequality because not everyone has the same drive, ambitions, strengths, intelligence.

To demand that government equalize everything is the very antithesis of freedom.

originally posted by: DBCowboy
a reply to: dfnj2015

There is always going to be wealth inequality because not everyone has the same drive, ambitions, strengths, intelligence.

To demand that government equalize everything is the very antithesis of freedom.

That is such a lame argument. You just can't admit we have EXTREME wealth inequality in this country. I bet you didn't even look at the video. See that's the problem. How can we even have discussion rooted in reality when nobody can agree we even have a reality.

It doesn't matter how hard you work. It is delusional and nostalgic to think they way you do. Nobody has enough capital to start a business capable of competing with the likes of Home Depot. I get you have dreamy eye love for self-made people. But if you think opportunity is the same in this country it was 40 years ago you are purely delusional.

People DO work hard. It's just the cost of living is suffocating.

All I want government to do is break up the cartels and monopolies by not having laws giving them advantages. You idea of "freedom" is let the CEOs create cartels and monopolies and eff the worker.

a reply to: Kali74

Do you have an example of who you think the far Left is and how/who they brand?

As I said far left is a fairly extreme term so I don't use it lightly, but as I and other posters have mentioned, the left seems to be more and more willing to use the term far right without actually considering how extreme the position they oppose is. If I could be bothered I would share countless examples of leftist MSM sources using the term flagrantly, to put a label on anyone who has any degree of support for nationalism, but I've got other stuff that needs to get done so I'm not going to do that.

Me too and ideally, leading to no government at all.

This is what I find so misleading, the ideology of leftism promotes a classless society with a liberal and non-invasive government, but in practice the exact opposite almost always turns out to the be the case when progressive socialist policies get out of control, and the end result is a nanny state. That is why I pointed out that no heavily socialist or communist nation has ever achieved true equality in practice, and are usually just dictatorships which experience very little progress because there's no motivation to innovate, at least no where near the level of innovation driven by capitalism. So you can talk about this utopia all you want, but when it comes to reality it's clear that system can never be practically achieved.

You seem to be putting authority and liberty on a left-right scale but authority and liberty exist in both the Right and the Left.

I can see why it may seem that way but I'm not at all trying to argue the right cannot be authoritarian. I'm just pointing out how easily socialist ideals can lead to authoritarianism, which was a topic of debate in the thread which inspired this thread. Liberals (in the modern sense of the word) love to act like they're the pinnacle of freedom and liberty, I'm just point out what that is very far from the truth.

I'm for free market Socialism.

I find this to be some what of a contradictory term. How exactly do you enforce the collective ownership if it's supposed to be a free market? Who decides who gets to own what? What about small businesses with only one or two owners, do they get to keep all their profits even if they're making a lot more money than most people because they have a really good product? If the money is redistributed, who does that, doesn't it by nature require a state to enforce ownership laws and equality? Attempting to achieve equality by force is never going to result in a society that any sane person would want to live in. Increasing the average standard of living is the best we can hope for, there is always going to be some people who have more than others.

Globalism is a world market, not erasing borders and it has come about through Capitalism

Well I guess it depends on how the term is being used, I was using it more in the sense of a globalist being some one who would promote a borderless EU in preference of separate nations. Or someone like Macron for example, who chooses the EU anthem over his own national anthem, seems like a move against nationalism to me.

My belief is that in the Capitalist version, it's just running around the world exploiting poverty with cheap or slave labor and reaping massive profits for little effort. Whereas the Socialist version rewards the labor and lifts the workers out of poverty.

I think the trap here is that that by trying to achieve equality, which can only be achieved through force, almost always lead to an overall drop in prosperity and technical progress. So you're trading prosperity for equality, and I don't think that's a fair trade. That is why I am specifically talking about average standards of living, I understand the fact capitalism promotes inequality, but at the same time it increases the average standard of living and results in an overall lower level of misery, and also gives people a chance to achieve high levels of success in life, which is impossible under systems where everything is shared equally, because there simply isn't enough resources to give everyone a mansion.

Far-left Progressivism requires heavy Fascism to be successful.

It also relies on most of the Marxist "10-Plank" system

originally posted by: dfnj2015

originally posted by: DBCowboy
a reply to: dfnj2015

There is always going to be wealth inequality because not everyone has the same drive, ambitions, strengths, intelligence.

To demand that government equalize everything is the very antithesis of freedom.

That is such a lame argument. You just can't admit we have EXTREME wealth inequality in this country. I bet you didn't even look at the video. See that's the problem. How can we even have discussion rooted in reality when nobody can agree we even have a reality.

I don't care ho much anyone else has or makes. It's not any of my business.

It doesn't matter how hard you work. It is delusional and nostalgic to think they way you do. Nobody has enough capital to start a business capable of competing with the likes of Home Depot. I get you have dreamy eye love for self-made people. But if you think opportunity is the same in this country it was 40 years ago you are purely delusional.

It does matter how hard you work. People succeed every day.

People DO work hard. It's just the cost of living is suffocating.

So now we're talking cost of living?

All I want government to do is break up the cartels and monopolies by not having laws giving them advantages. You idea of "freedom" is let the CEOs create cartels and monopolies and eff the worker.

And your idea of freedom is granting government authority over everyone.

originally posted by: ChaoticOrder
This is what I find so misleading, the ideology of leftism promotes a classless society with a liberal and non-invasive government, but in practice the exact opposite almost always turns out to the be the case when progressive socialist policies get out of control, and the end result is a nanny state. That is why I pointed out that no heavily socialist or communist nation has ever achieved true equality in practice, and are usually just dictatorships which experience very little progress because there's no motivation to innovate, at least no where near the level of innovation driven by capitalism. So you can talk about this utopia all you want, but when it comes to reality it clear that system can never be practically achieved.

You simply are not paying attention to history. The Soviets Union after WWII went from nothing to competing with the United States in an insanely short amount of time. One Tsar Bomba will ruin you day. I'm not advocating communism. But you would have to be complete moron not to acknowledge and respect what Russia did after WWII.

And then there's communist China. I've been to Beijing in 2003. They are not like us. They are more a communist country. The companies do not have brands. Companies share intellectual property. In China, everything is about maximum employment. Everywhere you look in China the state is making the country better with commonwealth projects. China has enjoyed 8-10% growth for the last 20 years.

I am not a communist. But the 1-2% growth we have here sucks eggs!