The problem with the Political Right

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I'm trying again, this time presenting arguments for my opinion:

The Political Right is different from the Political Left by the mere fact that all their values - be it social politicies (ie. immigration, death penalty, religious emphasis etc.) as well as economic policies are only beneficial for the rich and powerful.

I'll explain:

While both the Right and Left can have both Authoritarian and Liberal values (on the Y-axis of the political compass), the real distinction between left and right is its economic policies. This difference however, also affects its social policies, in such a way that you cannot have as liberal right as you can have a liberal left.

Example:

Say you have two opposing parties (Liberal Right and Liberal Left) sharing the same common liberal values - on paper: "Liberty".

Then you ask the liberal left: What's you stance on economic liberty? Their answer might be something like this:

"We believe every common-born male/female should enjoy the right to choose whether or not to work. We want to implement Basic Income (BI) for everyone, though only paid to those who earn no money themselves. When you start earning money, you BI goes down by 30 dollars for every 100 dollars you earned, in addition to taxation. When you reach 0 BI, you only pay taxes, and so you always have incentive to work as little as you can, yet you are covered financially in case of illness, disability etc. without having to undergo economically enforced medical treatments (ie. either you accept Electroshock therapy - or you have to go hungry and lose your home - this situation actually occurs in several countries with strictly enforced rules on Disability Benefits).

At the very least in case we cannot get BI we want generous social benefits for the needy (sick, disabled, psychiatric patients as well as autistics) without too many de-humanizing restrictions and requirements.

In short, we want to lower the economic liberty of the rich and powerful, and raise the levels of freedom for the common masses."

The Liberal Right might give a short reply like this:

"We do not want to tax anyone other than to pay for the police and military. If you are unfortunate enough to be unable to work, you can recieve charity or social benefits - with strict requirements."

In short, if you are unfortunate enough to be unable to provide for yourself, you are at the mercy of others. Disabled people who had no chance to get an insurance before they became disabled (because they were born that way) get no liberty. They will have to abide by the rules and regulations by their benefactors. That's not liberty. That's called slavery.

Bear in mind that NOBODY are enslaved in the Liberal Left's economic policies. Everyone can - in principle - choose not to work and recieve some low income without requirements. This won't happen however, because people will always try to embetter their lives, and so someone will start working and earn money and leaving more money (though taxation) for the needy who have to rely solely on the Basic Income.

The problem with the Political Right is - in short - that the Right only believes in liberty for the strongest, not the weakest.

As most people aren't strong enough enjoy as much liberty as the Right talks about, most people will have to be wage slaves. They still have to abide by rules of their boss, this time its not under democratic control, but solely under the control of the rich and powerful.

People should stop believing their are billionaires in the waiting. It won't ever happen.

Common people get much more liberty from the economic policies of the Left, than from the Right.

And please stop saying that the Left = communist (authoritian totalitarian state). Because the Right has just as many examples throughout history of authoritarian totalitarianism.

People will keep trying to find ways to take more of your money.

Likely, that's the underlying message of this topic: TAKE MORE MONEY FROM PEOPLE.

So, I think many people are unsympathetic.

Take more money from people, but re-distribute it to the population so that nobody are forced to work (one way or the other, including what we refer to as "wage slavery").

grouping millions of people together as 'the right' or 'the left' and suggesting the people within each all share the same view is just nuts

Not reading a text you're commenting, is more nuts.

You didn't even read a single letter of what I wrote in my OP.

Do you know what it feels like to spend A f*****g HOUR writing a long post considering each and every wording and how to put it so that even morons can understand it, which people comment on without ever having read other than the title?

You're confusing assertions for arguments. Are you hallucinating again?

Not this time.

It's not just assertions. They have truth.
I can prove it:



I will use my own country Denmark as example of evidence:
Liberal Right (Liberal Alliance - believes in liberty. But only for the rich).
They also aren't very liberal when it comes to the liberty of the sick or disabled, quite the contrary they think they should be forced to work as little as they can, even if it is damaging to their health.

Unfortunately their sayings are in Danish so I don't expect English-speaking people to understand.
You'll have to take my word for it.

The same with this one:


https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfr ... assessment

There you go!

This happens in UK, Denmark, Netherlands, Sweden - the list goes on and on. It is exactly because there is no Basic Income system in place in any of those countries.

Basic Income will give people liberty, because people can choose not to work - or work. Or work a few hours or many hours. How can this not be an argument for liberty?

Me picking out an obvious fault with what you wrote doesn't mean I didn't read it.

I think identifying the need to protect both positive and negative liberty is perceptive.

However, I also think you're being a little uncharitable to the liberal right. Supporting economically liberal policies doesn't mean that you don't care about the poor, you just have different ideas about how best to help them. For example, maybe you think that cutting security programmes allows you to cut taxes to such an extent that the economy grows and standards of living are raised. Maybe you even think this is the quickest route to being able to afford a really strong social safety net.

While I think UBI is probably not only good for the individuals receiving it, but also for the economy at large, I certainly have sympathy with the idea that generally speaking, governments should avoid doing things if private companies can do them just as well, and should aim to keep taxes low. In the long run this will raise tax revenues and standards of living.

Cutting taxes won't help the poor earn a living, if the reasons they aren't working in the first place are due to health problems (physical as well as mental).

Social Benefits for the needy only have the problem that you need to do work capability assessments - and as the link I provided (and lots of other articles) describes, these work assessments are often if not always damaging to the health of the individuals ESPECIALLY when you have the "cut the taxes"-ideology in place because the Right will go to extreme lengths to ensure they aren't paying a single dollar or euro more to the needy than they have to.

In reality the social benefits only for the needy has built-in the idea of distrust to the needy, and in most cases the far fewer of the genuinly needy are treated humanely and provided what they need.

Often these individuals are being sanctioned in their benefits, it's quite detrimental to their overall situation, their health and lots of other stuff.

This is why I advocate the Basic Income because it will abolish the distrust. Of course the genuinly needy should still be able to get added benefits in compensation because they genuinly have major difficulties getting a job because of permanent health problems. But in case they can't make the added benefits, they still have the Basic Income as their social and financial security.

The American left always demands a larger slice of the pie while the right strives to create a larger pie, the left advocates a collective, the right cultivates the individual.

Milton Friedman, a proponent of universal income said that the welfare state and immigration are incompatible. What about the millions that will flood the borders to join the dole?
I have tended to dismiss universal income arguments out of hand as Progressive Utopian vaporings. The fact of the matter is that Welfare and the Earned Income Tax Credit are a form of GBI, but administered in the most costly and cumbersome way imaginable.

But we are part of a collective (society) as well as being individuals. To say that we're just a collection of autonomous individuals is to deny the importance and need for society, which is to deny reality and our basic human connections to one another.

The sick (mental/physical), the young, the elderly. Those are the people I am all in favor of helping.

There was a point made in the OP about people having the choice of whether or not to work. Are these healthy people? And these same healthy people would get a BI?

Because I know a man in Canada who is healthy, he works 'off the books' at night, playing music. He doesn't pay taxes on that money. If I'm not mistaken he also gets a BI and other sorts of benefits because his wife doesn't make much as a cook in a school. So, with that as my example, lemme' get this straight... You want to tax the s**t out of those who can afford it, so that people like this perfectly able man (who got a 4 year degree free, I'll add) can choose not to work on the books, get benefits and keep all of his money from his nightly gigs?

I'm sorry if I fail to see what a sweet deal that is.

I am owed nothing. I want nothing that I cannot get with my own hands. Unless I am sick, old, or a child (I'm none of those things) it is immoral for me ask for another to support me.

From what I have seen, the left seem to be more focused on people's "rights" (in your example, the "right" to receive publicly funded income) whereas the right tend to focus more towards people's "responsibilities" (in order to receive money it is your "responsibility" to earn it).

Or to put it another way:
The left - Give a man a fish to feed him today...And the same tomorrow, etc.
The right - Teach a man to fish so he can feed himself/become self sufficient.

Of course, the right also believe in helping those in need (charity, welfare), but whereas the left want to help everyone, the right tend to focus on helping those in most need first, directing their assistance to those who they see as in most need, hence the "tough" requirements for welfare in order to deter those who do not NEED it (Why work when I can get easy money for doing nothing), which sadly causes pain for the needy as a result, but is not the intention.

Please read my reply to that one in my comment above yours:
viewtopic.php?t=382134#p8383683

The American “Left” - Berate the deplorable for using the above expression because using “man” is sexist and misgenders people.
The American “Right” - If the snowflake can not figure out how to fish it is because he is not trying hard enough.