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Sure!
All people are equal before the law. Discrimination is abhorrent, and people's personal freedoms should be respected until they harm others. Liberals and Leftists pretty much agree 100% on this so I won't spend more time on it.
Capitalism is the most powerful social engine for beneficial progress that the world has ever seen, but we need to keep it under control. It's like an engine - harnessed, throttled, and controlled explosive power to drive us forward at a manageable pace. Strong regulations, strong unions, progressive taxes, and heavy government incentives are the ways we keep capitalism under control. Currently, it is OUT of control and is doing far more harm than good.
Taxes on the rich should be higher, loopholes should be closed, and enforcement should be stepped up. There's no consensus on exactly how much higher, but they all agree they should be higher.
At the same time, we recognize the potential economic effects of taxing the rich. If we're not careful, they'll just move their money elsewhere. So we want to raise taxes to the extent possible without triggering flight of the wealthy.
Everyone deserves a minimum standard of living. Food, shelter, and healthcare are human rights and should be free for those who can't afford it.
Immigrants are good for the economy. Even the illegal ones. We should be making immigration easier.
Climate change is real, is man-made, and it is our duty as humans to do our best to fix it. However, we can do so to a large extent without causing hardship among everyday people, by making intelligent changes upstream from consumers. We can have economic growth AND tackle climate change, if we're smart about it.
Obviously, left-leaning liberalism is a wide-ranging ideology but these are the main ones that came to mind immediately. The biggest difference between liberalism and Leftism is that Leftists want to tear down capitalism and Liberals want to control it.
I'm into it. I do think capitalism has far overstayed its welcome. I agree with everything you've written here, I just see it as a stepping stone to socialism rather than an end goal.
Fair enough. I think a lot of Liberals view socialism (like no shit real "own the means of production" socialism, rather than European capitalist-lite socialism of today) the same way as me: it sounds nice, it just doesn't seem to work very well in practice. But hey if we can get it to work, neat. In the mean time, let's get capitalism under control.
lol, capitalism doesn't work either?
There is no "in the meantime", capitalism is causing a general collapse of society and the entire biosphere of earth there is no tweaking the ship smashing into a iceberg to be beneficial for the ship, the ship already hit the iceberg.
Yes, that is the problem I am trying to point out, you don't seem to be able to listen to people who disagree with you on this topic without overlaying a childish 14 year old strawman argument over the top of what the adult is trying to point out to you.
Agreed.
No the biggest difference is that Leftists want to address the fundamental, existential problems with capitalism and Liberals want to paper over it and not face the reality while still pretending they are part of the solution.
I'm sorry, I can't hear you over the sounds of thousands of starving Ukranians. What was that again? Something about Capitalism being the root of all evil and Socialism being perfect in every way?
What? What the hell are you going on about?
Did I say socialism was perfect?
Don't strawman me.
The biggest difference is that Liberals want to address the fundamental, existential problems with Socialism and Leftists want to paper over it and not face the reality while still pretending they are part of the solution.
This is what a lot of young leftists hand wave away
Taking in infinite immigrants and providing food shelter and healthcare for them and their lineage until the end of time ALONG WITH all of the disadvantaged citizens is not economically sustainable. You’d effectively be turning the U.S. into the world’s homeless shelter. At some point, likely sooner than later, all the raised taxes in the world on the businesses that don’t leave won’t be enough to care for everyone.
I’m all for compassion but it has to be reasoned compassion. You can’t just look at what your version of Utopia is and say that’s what we should do. Humanity is not perfect and neither will any society it builds be. But at the same time we can’t let perfect be the enemy of the good, and so we engage in these discussions.
I disagree.
Fuck yeah we would.
Give us your tired, your poor, your huddled masses yearning to breathe free.
Here's the thing about immigrants: they start businesses. They get degrees. They make money. They pay taxes. They drive the economic engine forward. They're not helpless fucking children, they are smart and driven and capable adults who happen to not speak your language and may have browner skin than you.
Yeah, it feels like you don’t really want to engage with conflicting positions and would rather assume I’m a racist.
And you just assume that immigrants would be dependant forever instead of a massive benefit. All evidence of US history to the contrary.
Actually, no. Obviously any immigrant set is going to be diverse. Contributions all coming on a spectrum from nothing to multi millionaire business starting.
The trick is to have a firm enough analytics handle on where you are as a country to handle all of the aforementioned needs of all of them that need it. You WILL eventually hit a point where you have to turn people away to break even economically . Then they start to come in illegally and you’re pushed past the breaking point.
How do you propose, in a world where we have that data (that may or may not exist yet I really don’t know if it’s possible to nail all of that information perfectly), that we handle the excess? If a church takes in too many people, they ask for more donations. If a country takes in too many people, who do they turn to?
What breaking point are you imagining? Our ability to feed people? The US produces enough food to feed the entire world.
Not the entire world a US meat based diet, but yes the entire world.
House people? That's more challenging, I admit, but the people coming here are a fraction of our population.
If conditions deteriorate because of overcrowding, you will have fewer people make the trip. I get that outbreaks of war, political oppression, and maybe disease could push people to make even dangerous futile attempts, but economic migrants will find an equilibrium.
Population growth is falling worldwide. There is no danger of overcrowding beyond the point of the land to sustain life. That could be a concern for a nation like Iceland, but not the US, which is one of the most productive and least populated places on earth.
There is a possibility of deteriorating living conditions, in the short term, but those are challenges I am willing to face.
The scope of the original statement was food shelter and healthcare. That’s a tall order for open borders with no concern for logistics.
Consider what the country looks like if conditions have deteriorated so much that it deters people from coming here. We will have zoomed past the equilibrium stage. What does life look for the average citizen much less immigrant at that point?
I’m sorry to wrap it up there but I only have so much bandwidth. However, these are conversations that people used to be able to have to tease out nuance, but somehow the zeitgeist has devolved to adversarial tone, name calling, and cultish behaviors. Hopefully I’ll find more when I have more time.
I'm saying that fundamentally your position is racism, there's really no other way to see it.