Welcome to P.F. We hope you like it here and will join in for discussion and political debate! Jiyuu-Freedom
Welcome, just curious what leftists means to you. I tend to use a simple line political compass, the farther left the more government one advocates for, absolute monarchies, dictatorships, and other large stifling governments on that side, while on the far right is anarchists.
I'm in the lower left-hand corner of the compass. I advocate nationalizing almost all essential goods and services. I want to leave some room for small businesses in distribution and for small farms, collectives, and so on, but for the most part private interests need to be out of medical care, energy, food, and essential research and development. They are quite welcome to continue to profit from non-essential goods and services, such as fancy cars, pedicures, and gold watches. And get the private money out of politics. In fact, this is essential before anything else would even be possible. Then give voters as much direct control on issues as possible using democratic processes, including voting on individual issues if and when the technology is ever both widespread and secure enough. Limit what can be voted on just enough to prevent a resurgence of human rights violations, for example no proposals to burn D&D nerds at the stake just because nothing good happens to be on TV. Make education as widespread as possible and go heavy on the history, philosophy, ethics, and logic. Plus we desperately need more people in the sciences, but that is as much for practical reasons as to enhance individual intelligence and enjoyment of life. No more reserving education for the wealthy or those lucky enough to test well without taking thousand dollar courses. Make education free and let people go as far as they want to go with it. Pay a real living wage, no more forcing tax payers to foot the cost so megacorps can make more money while their employees go on foodstamps. If a corporation doesn't contribute something good to our society deny them access to our markets. Get the US out of the rest of the world. Get Europe out too, for that matter. They're no better than us most of the time and they started the whole thing. Time to start funding the application of non-fossil fuel energy sources we already have and go balls to the wall on developing new ones. That is the only way to end neo-colonialism and work with other nations on technologies that will allow us all to have a higher standard of living instead of fighting like animals over ever diminishing clean water, land, and fuels. Well I'm rambling on way past what you asked. I guess you get the drift. My definition of leftist fits with a lot of other people's on the general outlook if not on every detail. It's easy to express, not so easy to figure out how to bell the cat. Or perhaps in this case, declaw the cat. Or maybe it's really more about herding cats.
Wow, that is quite the left stance. I am on the far opposite end. Government out of as much as possible. Just make sure people respect property rights of others, don't break contracts, use fraud or coercion. Thats it. The federal government should only focus on defense, and that means no foreign military bases. I know too much history to accept a large government that has the power over resources will ever listen to the people.
That might not work as well as you think. By nationalizing, you simply replace consolidation over necessary resources from private hands into state hands, and there's no guarantee's that the state will not abuse that position...and power. Funny though. I always felt a good way to limit the disproportionate growth and wealth of business elite was to make sure that everyone who worked for that particular business received a greater share of the overall profits. I don't think the top works any harder than the bottom, they are just deal-makers and administrators. While there should be wage scaling for promotional reasons, I figured that making sure the owner does not make more than five times the lowest worker would be fair. He may have had the idea, but he obviously needs a butt-load of people to bring it into reality. An idea is nothing without it. It would really be nice if we could have a real government that functioned towards the peoples wishes, or at least toward their general well-being as a priority. I'm not sure if people are capable of being more directly involved. Except for political hobbyists, not many people pay that much attention to it. Maybe on the top media issues, but there's so much going on of equal or more importance that passes notice. If someone could solve that puzzle, it would be extraordinary in my book. Music to my ears, lol. I think a total overhaul would be in order. In my view, the negative would be that kids would probably be more intellectually challenged. This, of course, means more school work and I was mind-blown when I saw on the TV parents complaining about their kids having to much homework. Huh? I'm a huge fan of strengthening the education on history, ethics, and economy, Not anything to deep for little kids, but basic lessons that express solid fundamentals and moral guidelines. But...this would undoubtedly produce rebels. You can't take to hard a look at our countries history, or countries ethics, or our countries economic policies and not be outraged...if you aren't profiting from it or seek to do the same. Better to lay a flag over the whole thing. Ramble some more. Good to have good ideas. I generally agree with all your sentiments, but it's how to fix them is where the claws will come out. I didn't want to leave a huge reply, so welcome and nice to meet you.
Welcome to the forum. I'm the U-dog. I've been around here for a few years now. We won't agree on anything. I'm about as right wing as they come. But I always enjoy having new people to debate with. From the posts I've read of yours so far, you seem pretty bright. So I do look forward to reading more of what you have to say. Cheers.
