Right Wing Politics = Social Darwinism

Originally posted by The Transhumanist
I agree. Both sides are ultimately guilty of ignoring this problem. The right has a certain tendency to stereotype and marginalize the poor while the left generally hold them in a more humanistic light, although there legislation rarely if ever lives up to this value.

I generally agree, although I don't see the side as caricatures, but rather two side of the same coin. They will be of little to no help in anything you or I want to do.

Again, I didn't mean to undermine the absolutely amazing job some communities do of taking care of their own, I just don't think they can handle the logistics of taking on the entire poor populous if the welfare system was dismantled. Both the community and the government need to start working together to tackle this issue seeing as neither solution is doing enough on their own.

What can the federal government provide on the micro level? Nothing. They act as a money collecting service for the states, but use the money are a bargaining chip to influence state laws. That is bribery and corruption on both levels that eliminates their validity as systems.

When you say "government", which level do you mean? They are not all the same and can't be lumped in together.

Would you be more willing to be taxed if the majority of that money was going directly to community organizations that help the poor rather than the welfare program?

No. No one deserves the money I earn more than me and my children. I am against most forms of taxation being discussed or used these days on the people directly.

I might be my brother's keeper, but not by force.

reply to post by The Transhumanist

What do you mean by this? I am under the understanding that this only applies in the case of transactions. All sectors would exchange information freely.

Nice wiki. The 'transaction' is the goods or services provided by the experts. The raw information could be freely exchanged, but the interpretation and application of information would be the role of a select few. Basically, the experts can tell the regular people that the information says anything.

It is also important to note that a democratic component be used for social policy while technical decisions would be relegated to experts.

Experts is just another word for an oligarch.

All you have done is criticize my ideas. What are your anarchist alternatives? Put the well being of the poor into the hands of the democratic majority? A gift economy? What kind of anarchy are you proposing?

I have presented another idea to helping the less fortunate. I do not understand what you mean by 'democratic majority'.

Surely you are not so brainwashed by your anarchist views to see that the democratic majority would be exploiting you and stealing from you in much the same way a state would.

So I am brainwashed by my own views. I guess you are brainwashed by others views. A 'democratic majority' as you put it can only exist in a statist system.

How is it logical to assume that the those in power are benevolent while assuming that everyone else, overall, is not; then, using the assumption that people can be bad, they give emence power to a select few of those same people?

I guess it just comes down to what the ends are. Mine are freedom and non-agression.

reply to post by DINSTAAR

So I am brainwashed by my own views. I guess you are brainwashed by others views. A 'democratic majority' as you put it can only exist in a statist system. How is it logical to assume that the those in power are benevolent while assuming that everyone else, overall, is not; then, using the assumption that people can be bad, they give emence power to a select few of those same people?

So you accuse me of being brainwashed by statist views but yet you claim you are not brainwashed by anarchist views because they are your own? You are buying into collectivist ideology just as much as I am.

In an anarchist society, direct democracy is usually seen as the mechanism for social policy decisions. The majority rules in this kind of system. This has absolutely nothing to do with statism. Direct Democracy is in fact nothing more than mob rule. I don't assume the majority to be always wrong, though history shows that the majority is very fallible. Placing technical decisions above the level of understanding of the masses into the hands of an oligarchy of experts reduces that fallibility. That is why The founding fathers chose a republic instead of direct democracy. They saw that power held by individuals with knowledge of law and history was better than entrusting power to the tyranny of the majority.

Maybe my ends are different than yours. That's understandable isn't it? I value equality and collective well being above personal liberty.

[edit on 16-10-2009 by The Transhumanist]

My solution to poverty is to increase it, thereby creating more competition for jobs, as well as a reminder to the working class what will happen if they stop showing up to their jobs.

Then i'd sail off in my yacht, sipping martinis and buying investments in emerging markets in Asia while shorting the dollar.

Muwahahaha!

I see a lot of opposition to government, but what exactly is wrong with government jobs? What's wrong with contractors getting government jobs? The government can help fuel our economy too, you know. So anyway, can someone explain that to me?........

Originally posted by laiguana
I see a lot of opposition to government, but what exactly is wrong with government jobs? What's wrong with contractors getting government jobs? The government can help fuel our economy too, you know. So anyway, can someone explain that to me?........

Sure.

I don't doubt that jobs are good, I work very hard to keep mine. The issue is not the jobs, but all the negatives attached to those jobs. Small business provides more jobs than the government ever could, and I live in Northern Virginia nicely outside the beltway (and go into dc every day). Our area is doing far less worse than a lot of areas (most maybe), but that doesn't signal anything good.

More government jobs are normally a result in more government power. Contractors are the guys who DO all the government's actual work. The cost of doing business triples (if not more) when they outsource it to these DC Contracting crooks. That's really saying something, because it costs the government quite a lot to do anything themselves.

As to the government power element of it, I can't see a single reason to give the government any more power for ANY reason. Military, Domestic, Economic, Diplomatically, Fiscally, aka any reason.

Every facet of the Federal Government's power needs to be scaled way down or eliminated.




[edit on 17-10-2009 by KrazyJethro]

I would agree right wing parties do seem to promote social Darwinism. Left wing parties do seem to undermine Darwinism. Humans tend to do that, we undermined Darwinism in Yellowstone park and nearly killed off the ecosystem.

So, who said that it was the responsibility of government to provide for people anyway? More public services creates a level of expectation of support, a feeling of dependency, and a cycle of enslavement and makes it easy to infringe rights in exchange for more services or an illusion of safety.

Originally posted by mikerussellus
reply to post by The Transhumanist

 

Just a conservative viewpoint here, but instead of more government jobs, lower the corporate tax rates, lower all taxes, and encourage entrepeneurs to reinvest in their own companies. Let them hire people, keep the money "in the system" to then generate MORE innovators to create MORE companies to hire MORE people.

Left government/right government is ALL bad. I say NO government intervention and let the American people solve the problems themselves.

My problem is... You seem to equate Companies with people - "let the american people
solve the problems"... Government is a construct of man, the very definition of government refers to a group of people with commonality in many regards. No government intervention is a tag line with a basis in idealism, many of these "Americans" (companies) are not American and hold no allegiance to this nation.

You look at the history of this nation is modern times... The national debt has sky rocketed ever since corporate taxes have been reduced - thats a fact - the further it goes down the more debt we create - there seems to be a correlation.

Originally posted by Janky Red
You look at the history of this nation is modern times... The national debt has sky rocketed ever since corporate taxes have been reduced - thats a fact - the further it goes down the more debt we create - there seems to be a correlation.

I'd be more inclined to look at the banks than the companies benefiting off of manipulated money.

Either way, neither have anything to do with the money not in the hands of the citizenry. A standard currency coupled with the elimination of personal income tax would be quite a boost indeed.

Can someone explain to me why you consider taxes stealing from you when you drive on the roads they pay for, feed your children with the foodstamps they pay for, are protected from terrorism and invasion by the intelligence agencies and armed forces, and depend on the fire department and the police they pay for? It's true some of these services may be provided more efficiently by the free market than the government, but at the cost of drastically lower wages, and a motive for profit above the general well being of the public. The government, when under the right management can play an absolutely integral role in what would otherwise be more of a brutal dog eat dog world than it already is. I suggest you conservatives put down your Ayn Rand novels and pick up Thomas Hobbes, a psychology book, or take some time to learn why the founding fathers hated democracy and chose a balanced republic instead. Anarcho-capitalism leads to runaway corporate monopolies, corruption, apathy, a rigid class system with an enormous gap between the rich and poor, and the consolidation of wealth and power into fewer and fewer hands concerned with profit over the greater good.