Among the many important differences between the right and the left is that if the position of the left is incorrect, it is an honest mistake. Socialist philosophy is fairly simple really - it proposes that the so-called market economy is not necessarily effective or efficient in certain areas of our social system. It really is as basic as that. Now, the fact is that despite what many on the right would have us believe, this is a nearly universally accepted postion at some level. There is no rational person who could believe that what we currently have is a "free-market" system, and we have accepted that markets cannot be "free" but must be controlled and regulated. More specifically, in various parts of the economy, such as education, we have long ago accepted that the only way to guarantee a universal system of more or less equal primary education is through a state sponsored system. I believe this is essentially undeniable since there are almost no viable political parties in the Western democracies who advocate for an elimination of this form of socialized education.
Now, getting back to the point at which I began, these socialist ideas (whether radically advocated or not) are more or less universally accepted by even rightwing parties. But if the more radical position of socialism turned out to be incorrect, it would be an entirely honest mistake. The goal of socialists is (even according their strong critics) to reach a more equal and universally prosperous society. The rightwing suggests that it is naive and wrong-headed to be committed to socialism, but it seems clear to me that the motives are fairly honest or straightforward.
On the other hand, the prevailing rightwing ideology is not only wrong but, in most cases, blatantly dishonest. The rightwing talks about freedom but pursues policies of powerful central governments with all sorts of powers to enter and control your personal life. They talk about smaller governments but generally increase the size of governments, the number of regulations, and overall they don't even reduce taxes. Rightwing governments talk about economic freedom but they pursue policies that radically increase the power of larger corporations which in the end reduce everyones' economic freedom. Most importantly, rightwing governments talk about increasing general prosperity but they pursue policies that they know will only increase the wealth of the richest group and will weaken the majority. Men like Mitt Romney, for example, know that their economic policies are specifically designed to increase the wealth of the rich, increase economic inequality, and weaken the ability of most people to better themselves.
The conclusion for me is simple. I would rather be naive (though I don't think I am) than be dishonest.
Katalog Dapur Aqiqah
10 months ago
5 comments:
Nice article, thanks for sharing.
Nice article, thanks for the information.
Politics are no longer about, what is good for the country, provinces and the citizens. Politics are about, how much money they can thieve from their people, for their own selfish goals.
Canada is now, a cesspool of corruption. As we all see, there are constant, lies, deceit, thefts, corruption, evil, dirty tactics, dirty politics, and cheating to win.
Our tax dollars are thieved to give to, banks, mines, oil and gas corporations and big business. They are also given, huge tax reductions. Our government thieves from us, to give to the wealthiest outfits in the world.
Our tax dollars are also thieved, for outrageous spending of our government, and the ministers. Did we really need a $1 billion dollar, stupid fake lake?
I won't go on, I'm sure everyone gets the gist, of all the corruption in this country.
Harper and Gordon Campbell have the worst corrupt and foul, political records in Canadian history. That's the way they will be portrayed, in our kids future history text books.
Ah! But you're leaving out the split between the "libertarians" and the corporate/statist "party elites"!
(Not really, but bear with me.)
See, there's this struggle between the libertarian insurgency and the old-guard traditionalists. The libertarians really want to shrink government and create genuine free markets and trumpet individual freedoms, but they're constantly thwarted by the people at the top of the party they belong to and support.
At the end of the day, it's dishonesty as you say. They want to talk a good game, but it's all about a boot stomping a human head forever.
Hello thwap - this subject of the strange relationship between the libertarian strain and the fascist strain in the rightwing always interests me. In the end, I believe that a certain number of young people start out with libertarian sentiments and they are attracted to rightwing politics because these are parties of selfishness. But they quickly realize that tyranny and fascism are much more efficient methods of getting power and money, which is ultimately what they really want, and thus they become the rightwingers we are used to seeing. But some of them realize that honest tyranny is a pretty hard sell - particularly to the young, more idealistic rightwingers like they used to be - and so they occasionally appeal to libertarian nonsense because phrases like "freedom" and "liberty" and "small government," etc all sound good to their ilk.
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