The problem with the Political Right

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Big government is not a benevolent, gregarious Labrador Retriever, it's an insatiable Pit Bull that needs to be kept on a short leash. The American left is in constant pursuit of an ever expanding need for more government. Adding more bureaucracy and more cost, but not necessarily more value.

When you get permanently ill and lose your work capability, you'd want big government.

You will beg for Big Government to come to your rescue, if you don't have friends or family to help you or don't have huge savings.

I'm f*****g sick and tired of people yelling at "Big Government". It is the reason civilization exists at all!
To believe in small government is simply too naive.

"Any government big enough to give you everything you want is big enough to take away everything you have."

That's a minority concern. So, you're saying that because some get sick, all should suffer big government? No. They can keep the social programs for the sick,old and young. I'll contribute my part. But, leave me out of the rest.

The Left panders to the poor for votes and to the wealthy for donations, while screwing the middle class from both ends with higher taxes and more government regulations.

The Right panders to Christian, white, male gun-owners for votes and to the wealthy for donations, while screwing everybody with fewer opportunities for education, employment, and housing.

That's the first time I have seen anyone describe "being given free money" as "suffering".

UBI actually reduces the size of government. If you give everyone the money, rather than just the "worthy few", then you take a lot of power away from bureaucrats and gatekeepers who decide who is and isn't worthy. Other benefits include less money spent on salaries for those bureaucrats, and no "welfare trap" where you can make more money by working less.

"the maximal effective marginal tax rate on labour income in 2019 is 55.9% (=0.08 + 0.92*0.5205)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Taxation_in_Denmark

VAT tax 25%

Land (property tax): between 1.6% and 3.4% of property value

Probably many incidental taxes, and government fees

So, let's say present tax burden for a typical Denmark citizen is 60% on labor income.

How much higher should it go?

You're giving them my money. So the government stays big and I get small, or 'right sized' as my groups term the phrase. Just because I paid the taxes and the government laundered it so that it's now their's to dispense as they see fit doesn't change the fact that were it not for the people, they wouldn't have it to give.

I do me with compassion for the sick, old, young. I do not do others who want to lay up on the rooftops and ponder the stars instead of working. If they are sick, old, young... by all means, enjoy the rooftops. If they are shiftless, maladaptives, f**k 'em.

You do realise that some autistics are deemed "shiftless, maladaptives" by people who knows nothing about autism, right?

And that the reason they are "shiftless, maladaptives" is exactly because of the autism and that these people are genuinly needy?

Well, the problem is that people have different takes on what "sickness" or "disabilities" mean.
That's the reason I want Universal Basic Income instead of only giving government hand-outs to the sick.

Because experts like doctors/psychiatrists and their documentation for why autistics should get welfare benefits, are never taken seriously by the regime of the neurotypical democracy.

I don't want to go on disability just because I'm autistic...

I do realize that. Hence, my inclusion of sick into the groups of people I support getting a BI. Now, I can't wage a war on behalf of every shiftless, maladapt out there as to whether or not they're autistic. We cannot hand out BI to everyone because they might be autistic, it would require a diagnosis.

I still think it's very interesting that some of us have spent a lifetime trying to hide that there's something wrong with us, only to be outed against our will as autistic/Aspie. And there's another subset who insist there's something wrong with them, but can't get diagnosed as autistic. It's enough to make one question. And it's not my area of expertise, I just notice.

Last edited by Persephone29 on 09 Nov 2019, 9:26 am, edited 1 time in total.

Me either... I can't think of a worse fate.

Then abolish “going on disability”. Give everyone the money regardless of whether some bureaucrat thinks they deserve it, whether they work, whether they meet arbitrary criteria. Scrap the red tape and restrictions and give the money to everyone - including you.

Associating UBI with conditions means that it isn’t a UBI and you’re stuck in the old, failed way of thinking. With UBI there are no scroungers, nobody stuck in a welfare trap, just citizens.

I don't want the UBI. They can keep their charity, it's not charity imo, it's codependence: I meet your basic needs, you keep me in power. That seems great until I'm sick of them, then it's, 'oh no, we made a deal.' Yeah, a deal with the devil. Basic? Really? If basic is all I'm entitled to, I'm giving up now. Basic is a scam, it lulls. I'm simply not interested. I want it all, or I want nothing. And 'all' doesn't mean anything grand. It just means the very best I'm capable of.

It is immoral for me to take a handout that I don't need.

Exactly. I could think of a worse fate. Technically, I could go on disability while being eaten by hungry bears. But all joking aside, I can't think of a proper reason for universal basic income when I'm capable of making money myself.

In most peoples' view I'm disabled. I can't work under modern light fixtures without wearing glasses and I am unable of managing crowds or large groups of people. But I have: 1)memorized a warehouse of auto parts in 2 weeks and managed the warehouse, shipping, and deliveries for 14 months, 2) worked as a coffee barista for 5 months and then moved to Nashville to 3) work as a novelist, which I'm currently doing now, as I prepare to take a degree in English & the humanities and go forward with life.

I'm autistic as all-get-out but still can work fine. A "handout" that the NTs made for themselves, to support their families and kids, but was stripped from them by taxes to feed ME? Why that's enough to make this conservative ready to eat the rich and the government too. I want no part of false governmental charity.

Going back to OP:

You need to distinguish many more aspects than left or right to make sense of things.

Originally, the left-right division was meant to describe the seating plan of the fewnch parliament. To the left of the king were the republicans, to his right were the royalists.

This obviously doesn't make much sense anymore.
In Germany, where I live, right means socially conservative, and left means socialist - two things that aren't actually opposites of each other.

So you need to distinguish between economic liberalism, neoliberalism etc. and social democracy, democratic socialism, and government-planned socialism. These are all distinct, and not points on a spectrum.
There's als libertarianism (which is basically a archo-capitalism) and a bunch of other concepts of anarchy.
And of course, or current system: socialism for the rich (in form of subsidies, tax rebates and most importantly government bailouts), and austerity for the poor.
(An interesting class-dependent mix of sets of economic rules not described in any of the theories. Presumably because if it were declared as economic theory, economists would scratch their heads and voters would start voting for populists and conspiracy theorists).

And then there's social conservativism versus social liberalism and progressivism. And libertarianism.

You can pick and mix all of these and certainly a few more ad libitum.
Left and right doesn't describe much.