What the left believes versus what the right believes

originally posted by: Gryphon66
Any examples of a modern national economy that is both successful and based enitrely on capitalism?

Government is too busy sticking its fingers into the pie. Lots of money in a capitalist system ... You know that. Humans being who and what they are, it's much easier to take then it is to produce which is one of the reasons why a command economy also fails spectacularly.

The issues isn't whether or not the systems produce pain for people. The issue is how much success they will allow participants to strive for coupled with how localized the pain is when there is failure because failure happens in both systems.

a reply to: ketsuko

So ... no examples of a modern national economy based soley on capitalism/free market forces?

If wonder if that's true for the same reasons that there's no pure socialism ... both ideas are abstractions and not applicable to real world systems.

For the record once again, I'm not in favor of unbridled socialism or capitalism. Mixed economies in the modern era have outstripped every prior example, and therefore, a mixed economy is best until a better system comes along.

I only hopped on your post to point out how ridiculously short sighted and pathetically woe-is-me your post is. The left is tar and feathering its opposition as racist and/or sexist. As Nazi's. Wake up. While the left cries about Trump and his low brow way of leading the behavior is parroted everyday by his opposition. And you wonder why?
Of course both sides are calling names and throwing mud---for 30 years the politicians have been doing this to great distraction and personal benefit

a reply to: atlantiswatusi

More than 30 years I would say.

"Old as sin" springs to mind.

a reply to: Gryphon66

There are pure socialism societies...The vast majority of tribal societies were 100% socialism..

Capitalism Kinda needed socialism to be born..

There have never been 100% capitalist societies though, and I’m not even sure one is possible.

originally posted by: JustJohnny
a reply to: Gryphon66

There are pure socialism societies...The vast majority of tribal societies were 100% socialism..

Do you have an example?

a reply to: Gryphon66

I still think the Founders had the best idea --

A loose framework of laws governing all and then a system of separate states that could make their own systems within that loose framework which could be as loose or tight as each chose so long as the over-arching framework was not violated.

When people are secure in their persons and property, know the law is set up to work the same for all no matter what, and they are allowed to make of life what they can as best they can under this umbrella, prosperity happens for the most people.

No. Not everyone will prosper under that system. Some make bad choices and others prefer not to try. Some plainly cannot do for themselves, and this last group does need help.

But most people end up comfortably in the middle somewhere.

a reply to: ketsuko

I think it is really about deciding what sectors of your economy work best public and Trump which private..


The gop thinks their voters are too dumb to realize that..

So they tell them that the concept of socialism , globalism, liberal, left , exc are all inherently evil and have a different definition than the dictionary does..

a reply to: ketsuko

Where slavery was legal and constitutional, women were property, manifest destiny was a scientific fact, exc, exc, exc....

So pretending like the founding fathers had it perfect is a joke.. a joke they would laugh at too, because they specifically left room for amendments.


You like the propaganda fantasy of the founding fathers, not the real men..

The real men just made a power play.. a power play with the saddest justification in history....

a reply to: Gryphon66

Anything before the invention of money obviously...


Basically every hunter/gather type culture in history..


There are no examples of a modern, global economy culture that is 100% socialism..


Pack animals would basically be socialism, so we had to start there.. There is no way for capitalism to spring up without the skeleton socialism provides..

It could be fair to say capitalism is the evolution of socialism, it might not be true that it is totally beneficial, but one sprang from the other... so.


The real and only argument is what sections work best capitalist and what works best socialist..


Personally I think you use public funding for necessities, and private funding for luxury and nonessentials..


I think health care is a necessity, so it would work better public.. just like fire and the military..

a reply to: ketsuko

That sounds more like the Articles of Confederation ... which didn't even last a decade.

I do however regard the US Constitution as one of the greatest human accomplishments, particularly in that it is self-correcting and able to grow organically over time, as the needs of the people change. The United States would never had survived as a loose collection of barely cooperating satrapies, in my opinion.

The Constitution is very clear on what the Federal Government is supposed to do, and it's not unlike your description in the second paragraph. Had that basic plan been honestly scaled in the ways that addressed the needs of a huge geographic area and growing population, that would have been great. That, in my opinion, is not what happened though.

Jefferson may have said it best:

"Some men look at constitutions with sanctimonious reverence, and deem them like the ark of the covenant, too sacred to be touched. They ascribe to the men of the preceding age a wisdom more than human, and suppose what they did to be beyond amendment. I knew that age well; I belonged to it, and labored with it. It deserved well of its country."

“I am certainly not an advocate for frequent and untried changes in laws and constitutions. I think moderate imperfections had better be borne with; because, when once known, we accommodate ourselves to them, and find practical means of correcting their ill effects.”

"Laws and institutions must go hand in hand with the progress of the human mind. As that becomes more developed, more enlightened, as new discoveries are made, new truths disclosed, and manners and opinions change with the change of circumstances, institutions must advance also, and keep pace with the times. We might as well require a man to wear still the coat which fitted him when a boy, as civilized society to remain ever under the regimen of their barbarous ancestors."

Source for all three quotes: Denver Post

The Framers knew that things changed over time, and they gave us the mechanisms to change things as needed.

a reply to: oloufo
Huh? Wow what colored glasses are you wearing. I guess you could extrapolate seeing blood in a water situation.

a reply to: JustJohnny

There is a big difference between best idea and "perfect" isn't there?

Of course, their idea still worked out fairly well when it allowed the loose framework call the COTUS to be Amended because eventually most people decided that those things needed to change.

And you're right, the Founders would have laughed at the idea that what they left was perfect which is exactly why they added the Amendment process so things could change as needed. The problem most of you have these days is with the idea that if *you* think a thing is moral, then everyone needs to think that way and if not everyone does then you need to wave your magic wand and force everyone to through the law.

It doesn't work out quite that way. For moral and social issues, you have to use persuasion because there is no science to back you up, just like there is no science to back up the existence of God.

originally posted by: dfnj2015



The left believes government has a role in regulating businesses and ensuring free-markets, protecting consumers, protecting workers rights with public policies, and tempering the excesses and inequalities created by laissez faire capitalism.

It's kind of mind boggling to me the way the right thinks. It's always all or nothing. I see government has a role in curbing the abuses of power by having so much wealth concentrated into so few hands.

And they do that with the threat of death. The Moral Authority of the State Is Death


Governments are violent entities in their nature.

“Every sanction or weapon or policy or procedure – including law where law survives distinct from authority – which the State commands against both human beings and against other principalities carries the connotation of death, implicitly threatens death, derives from and symbolizes death … Enumerate the usual prerogatives of the State and it becomes plain that each and every one of them embodies the meaning of death: exile, imprisonment, slavery, conscription, impeachment, regulation of production or sales or prices or wages or competition or credit; confiscation, surveillance, execution, war. Whenever the authority of the State is exercised as such ways as these, the moral basis of that authority remains the same: death. That is the final sanction of the State and it is the only one.”

originally posted by: ketsuko
a reply to: JustJohnny

There is a big difference between best idea and "perfect" isn't there?

Of course, their idea still worked out fairly well when it allowed the loose framework call the COTUS to be Amended because eventually most people decided that those things needed to change.

And you're right, the Founders would have laughed at the idea that what they left was perfect which is exactly why they added the Amendment process so things could change as needed. The problem most of you have these days is with the idea that if *you* think a thing is moral, then everyone needs to think that way and if not everyone does then you need to wave your magic wand and force everyone to through the law.

It doesn't work out quite that way. For moral and social issues, you have to use persuasion because there is no science to back you up, just like there is no science to back up the existence of God.

You mean like trying to ban abortion? Or banning criticism of Israel? Those kinds of control based upon personal morals?

originally posted by: dfnj2015
I am sick and tired of being called a communist or socialist. My problem with people on the right is they are always trying to label people. People on the right are always determined to define what it means to be on the left. I'm sure people could possibly perceive the left as being the same way with the right. But I don't think people on the left have the "my way or the highway" mentality as strong as the people on the right do.

Recently I was in a thread and someone posted the following:

"The right believes in small government, and big freedom. "

"the left believes in big gov and restriction of rights"

This is a rather derogatory and negative way of looking at the left. So given than I am a liberal Democrat and much further to the left the many of the Trump cultists posting on ATS everyday here is my way of characterization left versus right. I tried to do this a little more fairly but it is impossible for me not to be a little derogatory of the right.

The right believes in anarchy, laissez faire capitalism, exploitation of workers, gouging consumers, freedom from consumer protections laws, and paying politicians to pass laws preventing competition in order to have monopolies and cartels.

The left believes government has a role in regulating businesses and ensuring free-markets, protecting consumers, protecting workers rights with public policies, and tempering the excesses and inequalities created by laissez faire capitalism.

It's kind of mind boggling to me the way the right thinks. It's always all or nothing. I see government has a role in curbing the abuses of power by having so much wealth concentrated into so few hands. However, if you say anything at all, even the most mildest regulation, the response is like a nuclear bomb of absolutes like calling someone a "communist". If you propose one small law at all for regulating business you are supposedly eliminating private ownership of companies in some people's eyes. It's either absolute freedom or communism. There is no in between.

I think government has a role in promoting the commonwealth and general welfare. I think the words of FDR best characterize what in means to be liberal Democrat.

"An old English judge once said: 'Necessitous men are not free men.' Liberty requires opportunity to make a living - a living decent according to the standard of the time, a living which gives man not only enough to live by, but something to live for.

For too many of us the political equality we once had won was meaningless in the face of economic inequality. A small group had concentrated into their own hands an almost complete control over other people's property, other people's money, other people's labor - other people's lives. For too many of us life was no longer free; liberty no longer real; men could no longer follow the pursuit of happiness.

Against economic tyranny such as this, the American citizen could appeal only to the organized power of government."

Speech before the 1936 Democratic National Convention

I don't think Republicans and people on the right get to define what it means to be on the left. I think what it means to be on the left is mostly the responsibility of people who ARE on the left.

I do not have much hope things are going to change with people on the right. People are the right are not going to evolve into having the ability to make compromises.

Until the dollar collapses to nothing in value the majority of people really do not care much about politics. And if they did I'm not sure the way the system is rigged anyone could really do anything about it. The real owners of this country are never going to allow any real change from our scarcity economy no matter how much gains come in productivity from automation. Scarcity and controlling access is the source of the billionaires power.

The left consist of antifa, LGBTQ, BLM, hollyweird, muslims, illegal aliens, the fake media.

Normal people running to the right and fast.

Because of the left and their radical ideas, more and more people are going to Republican.

The left are mostly guided by passion and are beelding heart liberals.

The right are still using common sense and have the balls to make decisions that will help Americans first.

The left care more about illegal aliens than they do citizens.

a reply to: Bloodworth

Your post: opinion or claim?

a reply to: pexx421

As opposed to forcing people to provide them to others? Which is also forcing of morals.

But again, this is the principle behind Federalism.

People would be assumed to live in areas governed more to their taste. If you want an abortion on demand state as your home, you would theoretically live in one. If you disagreed with that, then you would live elsewhere. Instead, we have this endless fight over the Federal government where half the country tries to force its preferences on the other half, back and forth.

Personally, I think human life is life and has right to life granted it at all stages and everyone ought to be respectful of that when they engage in sex in the first place and our culture ought to reflect that in all aspects, but most people are too busy getting their rocks off to care until its too late, then they want to try to close the barn door after the horse is out and they think abortion does that.

originally posted by: Gryphon66
a reply to: Bloodworth

Your post: opinion or claim?

It's a fact that all those groups are Democrat voters

And the last 3 years all the websites I visit including here the support for Republicans has sky rocketed.
You see post like this place is turning into a right wing site.

You read the comments on AOL, drudge, and many other places and they are all on the same page

a reply to: Bloodworth

Opinion it is then.

Thanks for answering my question.