Do you consider yourself a Lefty or Righty

[JollyRoger]

Walt Disney benefitted from government enforced copyright protection and his estate still generates massive amount of income because of Mickey Mouse extensions to copyright protection.

Wealthy athletes generally are wealthier than they otherwise would be because of placement on government licensed airwaves while playing in government subsidized arenas.

 

[Mise]

My Dad's pretty well off as a doctor. Not Lionel Messi well off, but enough to pay the top rate of income tax.

 

[Ziggy Stardust]

Hmm, compared to R. Crib's thread, the forum moved 1.87% to the right in 3 years. And that's without Dommy and Ayn Rand voting.

Imagine that.

 

[Traitorfish]

People have gotten rich through hard work and good ideas, without immorally crushing others, you know...

I regard the institution of private property as "immorally crushing others". Do you have an example of somebody who has become rich without the aid of private property?

 

[Antilogic]

Hmm, compared to R. Crib's thread, the forum moved 1.87% to the right in 3 years. And that's without Dommy and Ayn Rand voting.

Imagine that.

There was also non-voters in RC's thread. It's close enough at the moment for me to consider it unchanged.

 

[RobAnybody]

@kochmann: Yeah, I think there are a lot of people who just genuinely don't give a crap about disadvantaged groups, and use liberal economics to rationalise it. [snipped for brevity]

I pretty much agree with everything Mise said. The times I wind up opposing the left is mainly on what people call "nanny state" issues - your soda is too big, no salt anywhere anytime, even smoking bans (which I'm personally happy for, but disagree with on principle).

Whichever side is trying to limit naughty language (both are guilty of that), or what can be shown on TV (nipple-gate comes to mind), or wants to monitor people's e-mails or library books... I'm against all that. I tend to think of it as being against the police state (right) & the nanny state (left).

But economically, I'm mostly left - I like having a solid safety net. It's both humanitarian & practical in that it reduces crime & lets people take risks knowing they won't be homeless if they fail.

 

[Mango Elephant]

I'm so stupid, I said I was a righty because I'm right-handed. I tend to be left-leaning, though.

 

[timtofly]

Care to define what you mean by authoritarian here? I'm really, really hoping you don't mean by requiring them to pay higher marginal tax rates.

I simply meant that it is from the people and not the state taking it's own interest above that of the people. I suppose it would be a single interest that nullifies all other interest involved in a democracy. Or a state that no longer regards democracy as useful.

 

[Lone Wolf]

Who are we talking about here, anyway? Closest I can think of these days is left-wing social democrats who object to the direction taken by right-socdems towards social liberalism, and generalising a bit they don't seem any more abusive or authoritarian than those they criticise. (Of course, arguably they're all abusive authoritarians, but I doubt that's really what you meant.)

Well, the left is so sectarian these days.

 

[Tee Kay]

Well, the left is so sectarian these days.

Quite. Far more than The Right, IMO. Conservatives are content with just letting things be. But The Left, no, we want to Change The World! Problem is we can't ever agree on what to change it into, or even what it is.

 

[Ajidica]

I'm not sure you can actually say that. Most of the American left is rather conservative because they want to return to LBJ-era Great Society programs, or at the very least keeping things the way they are. On the other hand, the American right seems dead set on reversing just about every social welfare program established over the past 60 years.

 

[Oruc]

Nope!

 

[Mr. Dictator]

Surely the correct term would be reactionary?

I wouldn't oppose labeling a large portion of the American political scene as reactionary.

 

[Crezth]

People have gotten rich through hard work and good ideas, without immorally crushing others, you know... it's not a crime to become rich.

You can easily argue that the act of acquiring wealth is, in and of itself, and act of abuse towards others. But even if we don't want to pursue that line of thought, it remains a point of fact that nobody has ever acquired wealth (in the sense that it is commonly understood) outside of society. His having wealth is wholly dependent on his being a part of that society; he employs parts of it, sells wares to other parts of it, competes with still more parts of it, is protected by other parts of it, and is educated/cared-for-from-infancy by yet more parts of it. Even if you get rich within the system based on your own Galtian sweat and toil, it is a fallacy to think that you owe your success to nobody but yourself. There is a massive support infrastructure - often known as "society" - that enabled you to get there in the first place.

 

[CELTICEMPIRE]

I'm far left.

 

[Lord of Elves]

I'm far left.

This much is clear.

 

[Arakhor]

Your signature would disagree with you.

 

[Quackers]

Well, at least we've proved beyond reasonable doubt that lefties are a majority on these forums to the extreme ire of some posters

 

[JollyRoger]

Nope, we've proven that many righties are too scared to vote truthfully, if at all.

 

[Arakhor]

Well, at least we've proved beyond reasonable doubt that lefties are a majority on these forums to the extreme ire of some posters

No, all we've proven is that 70% of respondents voted for the left option. Didn't we have a thread about errors in polling just recently?