cashto wrote:QUOTE (cashto @ Feb 6 2019, 01:11 PM) I'm always amused how people think P1 and I are leftists. Ask us about Bernie Sanders some time.
Well my objection to Sanders is more that I find him ineffectual and insincere. I'm pretty far on the left. The main difference between myself and what most people call a "leftist" is that I think most of the things a "leftist" government would do are things that should just naturally arise from community action.
I believe the purpose of government is twofold, the first role of government is to protect its constituent communities from external threats, and the second role of government is to organize and administrate large scale community-level projects. To me, a democratic government is just an agreement by its citizens to work together to create a society in which everyone has enough to survive. That's pretty $#@!ing leftist and is basically just communism. Where I diverge from communism is that I a) don't think that warfare can achieve these goals, and b) don't believe in linearity of thought. Diverse perspectives are important simply because
you can't know what's hurting me unless I tell you and you listen.
To that end I tend to look like a liberal capitalist because I don't actually give a flying $#@! what the tax rates are, who has megayachts, or what the computer market looks like, and I vastly prefer working within an agreed-upon framework for solving problems to outright revolution. I genuinely believe in the version of the Founding Fathers vision that I was taught: that we can create a government that does all that preamble @#(! for literally everyone all at the same time, and that in doing so we have to recognize that there are certain rights and aspects of existence that we should be guaranteeing to citizens.
I actually think a representative democracy works great, and that a version of the electoral college is an ideal way to elect an administrator. I think that a bicameral legislature is an interesting idea that's perhaps outmoded. I have several ideas for ways that I would amend the constitution to tweak the system to be more representative of the demographics of the nation.
By the way, SumV, yes I know you're going to go all "well leftist means that authority flows from community and not the individual therefore you aren't leftist you ignorant yank" but that argument is $#@!ing dumb for two reasons:
1) Any authority which flows from the community has to be agreed upon by members of the community because
there is no community without individual constituent members. An idea cannot exist without someone
having that idea. Therefore, community ideas are ideas that are shared by members of the community.
2) I'm expressly suggesting here that communal authority is more important than individual authority in the cases where the individual interacts with the community. I am only denying communal authority in cases where there is no (or negligible) interaction with the community. I don't really care if Metz is racist. I care if Metz attacks someone.
I would also argue that if revolution is truly viable, then revolution in a democratic system is unnecessary, because in order for a revolution to be viable it must necessarily have a majority backing it.
