The problem with the Political Right

Post Reply New Topic

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.

It isn't charity or a handout, it is a safety net which protects those who aren't lucky enough to be able to thrive on their own. Wealth and success is in no small part down to luck, and while people should be able to keep the money they earn, we should also all acknowledge the role that chance plays in our lives and try to smooth it out.

If you don't want it then you can give it to someone else. Giving it to you in the first place helps people who do need it. Would you rather you had money to give to charity, or that money just went to a government bureaucrat?

We have a safety net, it's called Welfare (money), Medicaid (health insurance), EBT (food stamps). You want to remove any qualification which I think can exploit a bad character. I am ADHD too, as well as ASD. If I'm moving I'm much better off. Me, sitting around like a hairball is bad juju, it's when I got into the most trouble of my entire life. How do you know you're actually helping? Maybe you're hurting people who don't understand their own character defects yet? I can't see how any good can come of it beyond those who qualify.