What do you believe that most people of your political creed don't?
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I don't seem to have a political creed anymore.
I believe in honesty and being honourable.
those are just vague values
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I can't address the entire reply since it's 3 in the morning, but I just want to point out something.
I'm not a communist. I'm not a socialist, or a Marxist-Leninist. I don't consider myself to be a "leftist" (which I see as an overly broad term), and I'm sure as hell not a centrist. If my views are inconsistent, it's because I don't follow any single doctrine.
Yes, and I didn't label you as any of those things. I sharee that the first two points overlap with some communist ways of thinking, which I view as a positive. I list the third point as food for thought and I was fairly qualified in how I described your politics so as to match what you had said and no more.
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I like the idea that people should be able to choose their representatives based on how they live, rather than where they live.
You sign up as a "gamer," or a "farmer" or a "soccer mom." Whatever you decide for that term. Your representative then wheels and deals and votes for laws that help you.
Any group that had 0.5% of the population willing to sign up would get their voice in the Legislature.
This is exactly the political description described in Ann Palmer's "Terra Ignota." Government by consent, irrespective of geography. People would join with up to one Hive -- some embodied idealist motherly traits like the Cousins, others were strictly about the nationstates of old, like the European Union. It's four volumes, but is an interesting tale of 25th century political science.
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Yes but i suspect that competition would be less fierce within the country, for two reasons:
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the central government can stand in and regulate that "a factory may only produce a specific amount of goods". such regulation works better on the smaller level, because regulatory oversight is easier to achieve.
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i guess that maybe the competition could naturally be less fierce. Consider: you would not want to pick a fight with the neighbour that lives directly next door; because you still have to get along well with him. It's easier to be in fierce competition with somebody who is on the other side of the world, because you will probably never see them again.
That makes sense, but this approach first requires the will to actually regulate in this manner. Because "just" closing the border right now would just keep capitalism unchecked, just within the country. Most people don't even meet their next-door neighbor that often, countries are usually still big enough that I don't think your second point does very much.
Otherwise, it does theoretically sound good. However, I don't think just any country at this point could be entirely self-reliable, some just have an impossible land-to-people ratio that is only possible by importing food from other countries. I don't have that much information about this, though, so might be false, I don't know how much land you need and how the agrarian situation is like for many countries.
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As a USian, while I think gun violence is a preventable mass tragedy that unfolds daily here I also think that when minorities, indigenous people, women, queer people or really anybody who isn't a white christian rightwing men talks about wanting to own a gun to protect themselves while living in this country I agree. If you don't understand the very real threat of police violence that you can't resist or stop, and the very real threat of other kinds of violence that police will NOT step in to stop because of who you are, you can't really argue against owning guns in the US to people that have no other choice than to take this kind of thing seriously.
I think handguns should be made much much much more illegal, since the handgun is actually the tool of state violence and oppression, it is the tool of surprise murder and intimidation. On the other hand if you carry a rifle you have to state your capacity for lethal violence, there is no hiding it or revealing it like a powertrip or gotcha card, which isn't to downplay the terror and violence that evil rightwing terrorists have wrought upon the US with assault rifles, but at this point I don't think owning a rifle or shotgun as somebody who lives in the US is an unreasonable idea, especially if you have become a convenient political and literal target for the right.
To be clear, the whole stupid idea that owning an ar15 with a 30 roung mag, bumpstock and quick change mags somehow makes you safe to a home defender that breaks into your house at 3am when you pull it out and proceed to shoot 30 rounds erratically in the general direction of something you hear, sending bullets careening through the walls of your neighborhood and more likely killing somebody's kid than doing anything to make you safer is pathetic and spits on actual real gun culture.
Also I want to note that people who roleplay as mil-sim types by spending actual thousands of dollars on pseudo-military equipment to live powertrip fantasies are hilariously pathetic by and large especially because they are usually completely and utterly blind (or worse directly supportive of) to forms of authoritarian violence (state or otherwise).
quick change mags
I'm sorry, what? Are there slow change mags?
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The acab movement has caused more harm than it has salved. Furthering the ideas that there are no good cops means that nobody good will become a cop in the future, furthering the issue
In capitalist states, the core mission of the police is to 1) protect the bourgeoisie’s private ownership of the means of production and to 2) discipline the proletariat, cracking heads if necessary. Historically in the US, they began as slave patrols, because slaves were private property, i.e., means of production.
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Abortion is not a moral hazard at all. Most people who might exist don't. The whole "everyone agrees abortion is awful..." shit is obnoxious. I legitimately do not care. I am far more concerned about the lives of actual children. Once we seriously tackle that issue, we can move downstream.
I've thought this for a long time. Until every living person has virtually every one of their needs met at virtually all times, abortion isn't even on the table as something to worry about. We have a responsibility for what we have already, not some potential human that has plenty of other ways they would never make it to adulthood.
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those are just vague values
I believe in doing good, as opposed to bad
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I believe in doing good, as opposed to bad
you are so brave
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I think we need to figure out how to make leftism more appealing to centrists, and particularly to the cis/straight/white/male demographic.
Leftism is unpopular by definition, especially to the privileged classes. Leftism seeks to upend the status quo, and loss aversion is a problem.
Not that efforts can't be made.
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Donald Trump isn’t stupid.
There's plenty of evidence that he actually is very stupid, and that he may even have a learning disability. To be honest, once you accept the thought that he may be mildly retarded, you can't unsee it. For example in the recent talk about rare earth minerals, it seems to me that Trump thinks rare earth is actually soil in the way he talks about it and it drives me nuts that the media doesn't point this out:
“We’re looking to do a deal with Ukraine where they’re going to secure what we’re giving them with their rare earth and other things...They have great rare earth. And I want security of the rare earth, and they’re willing to do it."
But he makes up for it politically with great skill in appealing to people's base emotions.
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Just wanted to prove that political diversity ain't dead. Remember, don't downvote for disagreements.
Protests do more harm than good to a cause, especially annoying protests.
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Protests do more harm than good to a cause, especially annoying protests.
Protests aren't always for the "benefit" of nonparticipants, as much as for those taking part. Being surrounded by people with the same concerns as you who are also willing to take some kind of action is very heartening. Not only does it bring joy to people who may otherwise feel powerless or overwhelmed, it presents opportunities for making connections for further organizing.
Without public protests, you may have a lot of individuals that believe they are alone in their outrage. Feeling this, nobody will ever act and so be defeated without ever fighting at all.
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Fundamentally, what Centrists want is stability, for people to get along, to find solutions that the majority on both sides would agree with. For the status-quoish state of stability.
A Centrist would be a Liberal (as its defined today, and not how it was defined in the 70's/80's) before they would be a Leftist. They perceive Capitalism as a stable foundation of the society.
To get a Centrist to believe in Leftist ideals you'd have to try and show that Leftism is also stable, AND describe how the transition/change to Leftism on its own would not be an unstabilizing thing. And also how Capitalism is a dead-end alley for the species ultimately, and how its ultimately hurtful to a society by incouraging fighting and competition between its members.
You'd also have to show that Rightism would understand that Leftism works. Centrists want both Leftists and Rightists to be 'happy' (loaded word I know, but you get the gist of what I'm trying to opine on).
No idea how to do all that, but IMO that's what would need to be done. You'd have to get the Right on board with Leftism, and you'd have to show Centrists that moving to Leftism won't be destabilizing to their current way of existing.
Best guess would be to appeal to common belief systems (fairness, freedoms, respect) that all three pillars would have in common.
An overall generic example would be to prove to a Rightist that a hand-out to someone is not being unfair, but its just helping someone out until they get on their feet, and can't be exploited, to try and "raise all boats" in society. And you'd have to tell some Leftists to stop trying to exploit the system, that they're now back on their feet, and that they need to put in as much effort as everybody else does.
For Leftists/Rightists stop yelling across the divide at each other, and start talking to each other, trying to understand what is important to them, and see if both sides can meet in the middle on those things that are important to both. Centrists will be happy that the fighting has stopped, and then you'd have to be extra careful not to destroy that non-fighting in trying to move the center to the left.
Oh, and do all of this while we have freedom of speech and people purposely trying to shape the narratives towards what they just want and to F with everybody else. A.k.a., "Free Will is a Pain in the Ass".
Thank you for coming to my 🧸-Talk.
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Centrists want the status quo, yes, but mostly just for themselves. This is why fascism starts with minority groups. Centrists will accept fascists "coming for the" communists/trans/migrants/etc, since it mostly isn't effecting their status quo.
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Abortion is not a moral hazard at all. Most people who might exist don't. The whole "everyone agrees abortion is awful..." shit is obnoxious. I legitimately do not care. I am far more concerned about the lives of actual children. Once we seriously tackle that issue, we can move downstream.
I am unsure about when it stops being moral to terminate a foetus/baby. I think it's somewhere between 6 and 14 months, but that's just my gut feeling. Some people are astonished that I would even consider that it could be after birth, but it's not like any sudden development occurs at the moment of birth.
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I don't seem to have a political creed anymore.
I believe in honesty and being honourable.
I suspect that most people, including those who don't align with any particular political creed, believe in honesty and honour too. So I don't think you answered the question correctly.
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Leftism is unpopular by definition, especially to the privileged classes. Leftism seeks to upend the status quo, and loss aversion is a problem.
Not that efforts can't be made.
Where in the definition of leftism is it said that leftism is unpopular?
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When you're coming from a position of extreme privilege and you're either a bit stupid or lack empathy or general social awareness being treated equally with "lesser people" (like women, brown people or people from particular religious backgrounds) can seem an awful lot like you're being discriminated against.
I think you're missing the point a bit. Liberal/centrist values are already to treat everyone equally, but not equitably. So when leftism comes in with suggestions for change, it looks to centrists like inequality. If you listen to centrists objections to leftism, this is what they say repeatedly, so I'm inclined to believe that is how they legitimately feel. This is why I think we need slightly different messaging/branding/whatever, or to talk about these issues in a different way, so that centrists actually understand what we're getting at. It's also not hard to find instances of leftists who, when angry, lash out at the majority -- which while relatable, doesn't help make leftism look appealing.
(By "majority" I mean the average joe, not billionaires.)
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The white nationalist movement preys on alienated young white men (more than other groups). Creating avenues for including these people in our movement means less people we have to fight.
I'm not saying everyone is able to fit into our movement, or they may require so much education that we just don't have the resources to depropagandize them, but as a mass movement, more is generally better.
100% agree. I honestly think that in ~2015, the left's failure to appeal to young white men caused them to turn to the alt right. I think we scared them off with things like "check your privilege" etc., and should have focused more on getting them amped about class warfare.
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Are you active in any socialist parties?
I would like to be, but I just can't figure out how to get involved in my area.
