Guys, at this rate I don't think the revolution's going to happen anytime soon.
I swear you could introduce UBI and someone somewhere would complain about it not being left enough.
Someone somewhere would because UBI is the capitalist techbro idea of a social safety net; it's a band-aid that doesn't address the underlying problems in a similar way to how the ACA helps but in reality is a very center-right idea that doesn't address the underlying hypercapitalist healthcare system.
Well there yah go, we didn’t even need to introduce it and it’s already not left enough.
It never was.
It was cooked up by Milton Friedman, one of the grandfathers of American free market libertarianism.
The whole impetus of UBI was to eliminate traditional social services because, it is argued, there's no way that a government institution could be as efficient or effective as a free market.
And make no mistake, even modern proponents of UBI such as Andrew Yang propose funding it by hollowing out existing social services.
Like, yeah, UBI is better than having literally no social support at all, but the fact that its seen as this ultra-leftist idea, to the point that we apparently can't even conceive of how it could possibly "not be left enough", is an indication of how far right mainstream politics has shifted.
UBI is only surface-level leftist, it's distributing some of the wealth while leaving the important parts - property - untouched.
So yes, I and many others would complain about UBI. I've long held it's an untenable bandage slapped on the gaping hemorrhage that is capitalism.
It's certainly not enough, but I'd still prefer it over nothing. I'll gladly take a miniscule win.
If you know anything about first aid you know that slapping a bandage on is the first step to actually helping the patient.
"The real problem with this stab wound is it damaged their liver. Putting a bandage over the wound isn't going to solve that, what they really need is surgery!"
"We're twenty miles away from a hospital, we need to stop the bleeding or they'll die before we get them to a doctor."
"A bandage isn't going to save them. Only a surgeon will."
And that is the issue. Ada is bleeding to death, and Bob is giving them a rudimentary bandage to staunch the bleeding. You could:
Let Bob do their thing, and go get an ambulance.
Complain to Bob that this will only slow down the bleeding. What Ada needs is to be in a hospital. Keep yelling at Bob for his shitty bandage.
You know what the most important thing for proper triage is : my personal feelings /s
The irony writing itself.
I mean, if it introduces people to surface-level leftist ideas and gets them onboard, they then can be drawn further to the normal - the left wing ideas. Which would be good.
I agree with you though that it's only a bandage.
You literally just engaged in what the OP was talking about, and here am I joining in as well.
I mean it depends on the context of how UBI is going to get paid for. If it is funded by a wealth tax then I am on board. But that's not how the powerful proponents of UBI say it should be funded. Andrew Yang would have us take it out of Social Security to pay for it but you don't hear him say we should uncap Social Security contributions.
'Centrists' don't help much either because they too hold the left to a higher standard than the right and always seem to be looking for any excuse to whip out the ol' "so much for the tolerant left" so that they can feel better about themselves when they vote for who they really wanted to vote for anyway.
People on the right can say in plain English "I want to dismantle women's rights and put all gay people into camps" and the 'centrist' will be like "hmmm yes that seems like a valid political opinion". But the moment someone on the left drops the high road shit for once and bites back, the 'centrist', clutching pearls is like "See? This is why I'm supporting the bigots that hate everyone, because you SWORE and that's unacceptable!"
You can see it plain as day in the last election's rhetoric. Democrats insist that a simple Republican Majority is enough to end democracy nationwide. However, they also believe Republicans can trivially block any liberal initiative from the legislative minority.
"As you can clearly see, in this info graphic design I am the Chad and you are the Wojack."
Palestine is now going to get genocided even faster, trans and gay people are going to suffer, and there's a real chance of a country falling into actual fascism which will then cause a domino effect Rippling out into the entire world. This is your fault. You did this. You and your idiocy.
That's not a Centrist viewpoint at all. That's a solidly right viewpoint.
The Centrist would, however, say "look, if you're going to make your whole vibe about tolerance, that's cool. I love it. But my homie, that's a slippery slope you haven't fully negotiated yet. So when your less disciplined people start to be big picture tolerant through on-paper intolerance, don't expect me to do the same mental gymnastics to defend it that you do with your mom at Thanksgiving. How about you solve the problem before you create it by not being sloppy and bumbling your way into an obvious trap every bully has pulled since the dawn of time?"
But hey, as a Centrist, the Left can't discern me from someone like Bush 43 or a raging MAGA freak because anything right of far left is a legit fascist. Which is why I cant hang with you all, your labels are weird. But the Right usually wants to hang me for being a traitor, so one of y'all is far more worth dealing with occasional cringe.
That's not a Centrist viewpoint at all. That's a solidly right viewpoint.
Well then all I can say is that there's a fair number of right wing people that consider themselves 'centrists' either dishonestly or genuinely believing it. It's actually what I was going for by putting centrist in quotations.
But something that I will never go near the centre on is human rights (whatever that looks like). For example, women should have full rights over their own bodies and not have to die in hospitals when something goes wrong because doctors don't want to risk harming a foetus (that ends up dying along with her anyway), trans people should be allowed to exist without fear and persecution from other people that can't mind their own damn business and everyone should be able to choose their religion or lack thereof. For me personally, these are the kinds of things that are more important than the price of eggs. And anyone that ignores those issues because of the price of eggs, does in fact look pretty similar to a MAGA to me.
As far as the slippery slope goes, I believe in no tolerance for the intolerant. Once you've shown that you just will not give other people the respect that you personally want, you don't deserve it.
But hey, as a Centrist, the Left can’t discern me from someone like Bush 43 or a raging MAGA freak because anything right of far left is a legit fascist.
:-/
How about you solve the problem before you create it by not being sloppy and bumbling your way into an obvious trap every bully has pulled since the dawn of time?
There is an argument that politics is the art of representing the aggregate interests of ordinary people on their behalf. And what a successful politician needs to succeed is a rapport with the community such that they can channel the socio-economic demands into the bureaucracy efficiently.
Unfortunately, we live in a country where seats are heavily gerrymandered, information on candidates for leadership is either highly censured or ludicrously unreliable, and singular individuals are expected to represent populations on the scale of 300k to 40M at the national level.
Socratic Rhetoric isn't the issue here. You're not engaging in an Ivy League debate between peers. You're talking entirely about the ability to manipulate public opinion at a national scale. A lot of that boils down to mass deception, demagoguery, and pure tribalist politics.
There's nothing you can say or do that won't result in the opposition calling you a foreign infiltrator or a degenerate loser or a reactionary terrorist. You're trying to play chess with a stampeding bull.
Ah yes, the old enemy of the left: the left.
You leftists sure are a contentious people.
The differences of opinion are still there in irl leftist spaces but it alters how it feels when you’re actively doing something. Online you only see the differences in opinion but the real leftists aren’t just arguing details online (though they do that too) they’re running food banks and organizing housing cooperatives and coming out en masse when someone is being evicted. They’re putting together food packages and sending books to inmates. They’re hiking out into the desert to leave water for migrants and waiting by the train tracks to toss food up to travelers.
Bickering about details online might seem ridiculous to someone who isn’t involved but for the actually active leftists that part is only a sliver of their leftism and it’s not necessarily a bad thing— it’s very hard to imagine the world organized other than it is and one way we can be prepared to make the right decisions together when gaps appear is to discuss everything from every angle. I’m not going to pretend all the stuff online is in good faith and I suspect a good percentage of keyboard warriors who are not actually involved in leftward movement, but I do think in the context of real activism the bickering makes more sense.
A lot of online leftists aren't doing anything because they don't know how to do something (or are scared, e.g. of losing their job or of getting brutalized by the police). If you aren't doing anything in The Real World(TM) there are only so many things left to do, and the internet is genuinely terrible about people who make mistakes or change their opinion.
Right... Except this is true for all online communities. People talk a lot of shit and complain a lot. Cope with it or log off.
Or blame it on the left, lol, whatever makes you happy.
I am left and this is so fucking true though. So many pussy-ass towel wringing gutless cowards just want to pick bones out of tofu than actually act to make a meaningful difference because they are frozen with indecision over acadmic moral quandries
As a leftist its also important to keep in mind we do differentiate between leftists who hold some opinions we disagree with compared to a Liberal who disagrees with us on nearly everything. Especially when said Liberals demand to be treated like leftists yet support imperalism, genocide, apartheid, capitalism, bigotry, and yet constantly call people "fake leftists" or "tankies".
You had me until "tankies". Tankies are scum and don't need defending.
It's not about defending tankies it's about people who are constantly shifting the focus of conversation to the most mockable section of online lefties.
The ruling class don't waste their time distancing themselves from qanon, they focus on furthering their class interests and emiserating the poor.
Liberals who are constantly calling people tankies are helping the ruling class.
I'm not taking cues from the far-right in not denouncing our worst aspects when I see them and letting them take up shop in our spaces. I don't see the need to whataboutism to them either and will call that out, but I don't want them in spaces I'm in either.
No one's defending tankies, nor saying we shouldn't call them out. The original commenter was saying liberals call all manner of leftists "tankies" when they actually aren't in order to derail them.
It's how we're conditioned to behave by society from birth. Break the rules and you get punished.
This so fucking much
It's easy to convince people to do wrong if you convince them there is no right to be done.
That's why Tankies are so hard to tell us both sides bad.
I remember when the election happened I saw so many people on the left complaining that they needed a left wing version of Joe Rogan.
Motherfuckers you HAD Joe Rogan. He just talked to people you didn't like sometimes so you literally pushed him into the open arms of the right. Good job idiots.
Yeah I don’t think that’s what happened.
We doing revisionist history now? Joe endorsed Bernie Sanders in 2020. He was a self described Democrat for the majority of his life.
But because he invited guests from both sides of the isle onto his podcast the left decided he was a problem. God forbid anyone want to even hear what the other side is thinking once in their lives. The left abandoned Joe and guess who was there to snap him up when they did that? The alt right dumbasses. So now we have Joe endorsing Trump this time around.
The left is not tolerant of any amount of different thinking among their ranks. You gotta agree on everything or you need to leave. You can see it situations like Joe or even smaller situations like myself and many others who spent their entire lives being Democrats only to be shown the door when we disagreed on one or two things.
Whether or not you believe that's what's going on I can tell with absolute certainty it is. The 2024 election results fall more on the shoulders of the Democratic party messing everything up than Trump or the Republicans doing anything particularly right.
Y'all need to stop thinking in such black and white terms when it comes to people. Someone can be all for universal healthcare, but also want their own gun to defend themselves. Some of the more moderate left can understand that, but the grand majority will view that kind of person as a full on righty so they push them away. And guess what happens when they do that? You lose elections because you're so up your own ass about things that you lose people who were on your side.
...be shown the door when we disagreed on one or two things.
Did your girlfriend break up with you over that tiny little issue of believing she deserves bodily autonomy?
Go ahead, tell us the tragic story of how the Democrats forced you to change sides not because of the issues that haven't changed, but because your feelings got hurt.
See you're proving my point for me right now. You don't even know me or any of my stances yet you assume because I have said I don't agree with all the ideas on the left that I must be a Trumpy.
I am staunchly pro-choice. I've never been broken up with because of my political beliefs.
You seriously need to take a step back and reevaluate how you interact with people.
No, I did not assume. I read the part where you said you spent your entire life as a Democrat. That's the past tense which means you no longer are.
Nobody kicked you out. You got upset when somebody pushed back. Just like now.
What opinion of yours got challenged enough that you left? Let's hear it so we know if it's bad enough to deserve whatever you got or you were unjustly maligned.
They suck because nobody is left enough for anyone else, this past year the left splintered and if you so much as lean a little bit left or right of another leftist, you’re a fascist and they don’t want your support.
Meanwhile the right is unified, so no wonder the left is getting its ass handed to them.
Except in crisis, a society benefits when everyone does nothing renegade.
The problem is we're in crisis, largely due to a lack of information about the scope and breadth of that crisis.
The Left: Fractured Butt Hole. 😞
Be sure to follow the rule before you head out.
Rule: You must post before you leave.