Random Politics & Religion #01

Call it what you will, but I have a point. Carry on with your righteous campaign, armchair warriors.

The worst is when you make a real post but it ends up on the bottom of the page due to everyone complaining about everyone else (which I guess includes myself). Oh well.

No, you don't. You're just pulling out an infantile RL card. We're having discussions here and no one is pretending they're anything more.

Sorry.. Couldn't help myself..

In that case, I'm going to continue to promote my signed bathtubs and FFXI's #1 MS Paint and NHL discussion Linkshell (yes, we've expanded to new territory).

LoL.

Well we were before certain essay-long shitposts.

Oh, Christ!

Can we agree that both conservatives and liberals both care about people, but the route an individual chooses could be based on individual ideologies?

Fun read, for those who are interested.

Part of the issue is that Saevel is posting page-long theses about the duality of Labour-model vs. Subjective value theory...which no one was debating prior to that. His goal is plainly to try to get people to admit A) they are 'progressive' by B) admitting that wealth-redistribution is part of their ideology, which leads to C) whole-cloth association of wealth-redistribution to socialism and Marxism (by stating those lead to the creation of Marxism, which is true), which then leads to his personal conclusion that D) wealth-redistribution is anti-capitalist (by virtue of his personal view of Subjective Value Theory) and that unequal taxation is therefore 'theft at gunpoint' from those who 'earned it'.

While I personally would agree with the reasoning of B (the nature of wealth-redistribution, whether voluntary or involuntary), I have to contend with both C (that while this lead to the creation of Marxism, that wealth-redistribution is not synonymous with either Marxism or socialism), and D (that wealth-distribution is both anti-capitalist, even going under the premise of Subjective Value Theory, and certainly that is it then "theft", which is in itself a subjective perspective of the act of voluntarily paying taxes or being punished for not paying.)

The main consideration for the above, to me personally, is the origin of the welfare state. To imply that the modern welfare state (funded by taxation of excess beyond-one's-needs capital and resources in a societal body) is anti-capitalist is contentious. For example, the concept of 'gleaning' exists in primitive agrarian barter (pre-capitalist, pre-standardised-market) societies...

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gleaning

...regardless of whether the stipulation to give 'excess' up to the greater social body is derived from an authoritative source (governing body, social peer pressure, or even in some cases divine dogmatic decree from religious scripture.)

It is clear the notion, whether voluntarily or involuntarily, that 'excess' production is being given up for the good of those less fortunate existed far prior to, and independent of, any socialist or Marxist ideology and, for that reason, shouldn't really be conflated with those economic concepts. To jump to a modern version, one can easily see why 'progressives' have the ideology that there is a social responsibility by all in society to provide, with those with greater 'excess' providing more. That being the case, to imply that anyone who is 'taxed' for excess is being 'robbed' becomes more an action of projecting one's own values onto the situation, which is what is the point of contention no?

#1: Taxes are as old as time, it's how Kings and rulers funded armies and national projects. They were hijacked as a conduit for wealth redistribution because their legitimacy was long since established. By mixing the monies for both wealth redistribution and non-wealth redistribution supporters can shield their program from public outrage. There would be much less support for social programs if everyone got an itemized tax bill showing them exactly how much was being taken for those same social programs.

#2: Public services that are equally available to all wealth class's and equally assist wealthy and non-wealthy are not redistribution of wealth. Road maintenance, defense spending, justice spending, public parks, public water systems, fire fighters and government hospitals, infrastructure and such. That's right I'm a supporter of government owned healthcare because I view hospitals the same as fire and police stations, a public service. Doctors the same as police officers and fire fighters, public servants who take an oath. A "public service" that specifically prevents wealthier individuals from benefit yet is still funded by tax money taken from those same individuals is wealth redistribution. A wealthy individual still use's the police station, the fire station and even the public hospital, they can not use welfare, food stamps, assisted housing and other such programs. They pay for something at a disproportionate rate yet still are not allowed to benefit from it.

#3: I am speaking onto the progressive ideology of wealth redistribution. I know there is a lot more to the left position then "taking from the rich", which is why I referred to wealth redistribution as A core tenant and not THE core tenant of progressivism. That being said, wealth redistribution was a huge central in the Communist Manifesto which pretty much kick started the entire modern liberal / socialist movement.


As for my personal beliefs, I do believe some wealth redistribution is required for a functioning society. Preventing it from an ideological standpoint would create a very dystopian situation where the poor would eventually outnumber the wealthy in such numbers that it would only take a few central zealots to spark a revolution. Those are extremely destruction and the resultant government tends to be very oppressive and bad for everyone involved. Fully supporting absolute wealth redistribution creates an equally dystopian situation where there is zero incentive to create wealth and only those running the government benefit from that society. Thus we must take a pragmatic approach, ensuring that many incentives exist to encourage people to want to create wealth, while also ensuring the number of poor do not grow so vast that they can be easily exploited by those who wish to overthrow society.

Which is why those arguing for the progressive ideology must first acknowledge their own beliefs and rationally accept that there are both benefits and detrimental effects to them. Only then can a production discussion take place.

Or everyone could just go back to emotionally attacking each other.

Shellholder of my primary LS is quitting with the end of Xbox support, so I'm just taking everyone in. Lots of people in that LS are big on hockey, to the point where events get cancelled cuz people are watching games.

Untrue. Liberals do not care about the rich, and some do not even care about the middle class. If you really want to get into it their leaders could care less about the poor.

I would recommend trying to anticipate when said games are, maybe via some sort of schedule, and not schedule events then.

wat

I accept your surrender.

To be perfectly honest leaders of both political factions only care about themselves. Humans are innately selfish, I call it the ring model.

Try to imagine concentric rings with a central dot. That dot is the individual. Immediately around that individual is the first ring which are those the individual cares about the most, wife, husband, children, parents, brothers and sisters, maybe even life long friends. A little further out is a second ring, cousins, close friends, extended family, those that are still deeply cared about but not as much as the immediate family. Further out make another ring, co workers, friends, in-laws, those that have some degree of caring but not as much as the previous two. Still further out put another ring, club members, associates, party members, those that are cared about via some form of shared goal or identity. Then put everyone else on the planet outside that final ring. They are not cared about but in the most passive and non-committal of ways. As one moves from the center out to the edge, the effects of something matter less and less to the individual.

Politicians will use association and identify politics to make someone care about a particular issue by making it seem as though it effects them or someone close to them. And then from that association pull support for other issues.

Ultimately neither liberals nor conservatives actually "care" about people, they just use those politics to created associations to make it look as though they do. Humans are fueled by incentives, find the incentive and you find what drives them.

Shortening your post cuz I think this quote is where I can pinpoint the discourse on the last few pages. Unless I missed it, I don't think anyone else brought up such extreme wealth redistribution. I mean, I get what you're trying to say, but I think it's coming off like you're obsessed with defining "progressive ideology" in the terms you provided. Beliefs are never so concrete as to follow hard criteria, but are personal, evolving, and sometimes paradoxical. But maybe I'm getting sidetracked, so let's get back on point.

So, just to clarify, you support public services, but only to the extent that they directly benefit everyone, and you draw the line at programs like food stamps, assisted housing, etc? What I'm arguing is that these programs are still in the interest of the wealthy since they create a more stable society culturally (less tension) and economically (more consumers).