The Left and my theory as to why they love the government

I was listening to a podcast yesterday called Ear Hustle which focuses on inmates at San Quentin, and just how things are as an inmate. The latest podcast was about prisoners looking forward to release. While they have many plans like what they'll eat and who they will see, one guy who had been released ended up homeless and angry that he hadn't been given enough resources to make that transition from prison to freedom. He had lots of gripes about how there wasn't a program for drug addicts, and how to get a job.

That got me thinking. Here's this guy who went from prison to being homeless, and angry that after 20 years spent in prison, he wasn't getting enough support from the government, so he ended up homeless and back to doing drugs.

This dependency upon the government sounded so familiar to me. I knew I had heard it before, and then I realized that this dependence upon the government is exactly what my friends on the left say every day.

There's no free healthcare, no free education, no guaranteed basic income, no living wage... All of this is looking to the government to take care of basic needs that they readily admit they aren't capable of dealing with.

After so many years of a welfare state, are we dealing with institutionalized people who depend on the government for basic life functions?

The similarities between institutionalized prisoners and our friends on the left who constantly demand more and more government solutions to simple everyday basics of daily personal maintenance got me wondering if there is some sort of correlation.

 

Your post lacked logic. Healthcare and education isn't government dependence. It's acceptance of market failure. Its rejection of a make believe perfectly competitive utopia. And a basic income? That eliminates bureaucracy. Given its integration of tax and benefit systems, its also similar to Friedman's negative income tax. And living wage? That's about removing corporate welfare.

Of course 'the left' includes anarchism and rejection of state authoritarianism. In contrast, we get to see the reality of right wingers who ignore economics. Given capitalism is innately unstable, their support for market fundamentalism in reality ensures that government becomes the key economic agent. Macroeconomic stabilisation is required, else the reproduction of profit is no longer guaranteed.

 

I think I get it...according to your OP...You are claiming...

That the "Left" = "Institutionalized prisoners".

That "premise" seems rather insulting (in a "Broad Brush" sort of way).

And, that is all you've got?

I strongly disagree with the "premise" of your OP.

Carry on.

 

Strange how so many of us manage to pay our medical insurance, put roofs over our heads, and basically just get by without running to the government that the real question isn't whether there is some "market failure" you never bothered to argue in favor of, but rather whether we should buy another ford this year, or maybe give ourselves a treat and buy a porsche.

meanwhile you are complaining about a "market failure"...

 

A girl who was raped repeatedly as a child is going tto have relationship issues later in life. It's not insulting to tell her that traumatic experiences she experienced earlier in life have resulted in a negative effect in her life now. It's simply an attempt to explain her behavior.

You have to understand that this dependency upon government is not normal. Most people understand that if you want something, then you work for it until you can pay for it. This is a normal response. A child understands that if they want a bicycle, they have to cut a few lawns or deliver a few newspapers. Whinging about how uncle Sam should just give them a bicycle is not normal.

I've tried to understand this mentality and it never really made much sense to me. If you have some alternate theory, then I'd love to hear it. So far, I've just heard that uncle Sam is rich enough to give everybody a bicycle, that having a bicycle is a human right, so it's only fair that Sam be forced to give everybody a bicycle.

That has never made much sense to me, nor I suspect, to my fellow conservatives.

 

Market failure analysis isn't left wing. Its neoclassical and therefore really more relevant to the right wing. You're just confirming how, without any economic understanding, there's a tendency towards crass error.

 

Perhaps you would do us a favor and explain the idea. As it is, you're just saying that the problem is X. I'm sure that makes perfect sense to you, but since you never bothered to explain X, then it could have been Y or Z.

Why is it that most of us have managed to get by without running to the government for help?

You can say "X" again, but without an explanation as to how that works, then I'm afraid you're not of much help.

 

You want me to explain right wing economics on a thread where you incoherently blubber about 'the left'? That's a new one.

Market failure here simply refers to distinction between marginal private and social costs/benefits. It describes how the profit maximisation process creates a deadweight loss (defined as destroyed economic wellbeing). Thus, if social benefits exceed private benefits (with these concepts based around methodological individualism, continuing the illogical theme in the OP), there will be under provision (either in terms of consumption or investment)

 

you introduced it as an argument. It's incumbent upon you to explain it.

Presenting an argument that says your position is wrong because of (potato). And someone then says, "explain (potato)."

And you say,"you expect me to explain (potato) to a (generic string of Idiotic insults?)"

Yes, people expect you to explain the things you say. if you can't then it's safe to assume you have no idea what you're talking about. You probably just regurgitating something you read on the back of the cereal box because it sounded really smart to you at the time.

This is something we see a lot of faux intellectuals try. The veil is extremely thin and I can see right through it. I think the only one that thinks your new clothes are beautiful is you.

 

Why didn't the OP realise that he's arguing against right wing economics? Why didn't he realise that referring to "the left" made no logical sense?

 

The OP is making a FALLACIOUS correlation between someone with a SUBSTANCE ADDICTION and an IMAGINARY "dependence" upon government that does not exist.

Substance addiction is a MEDICAL condition but thanks to Republican government MALFEASANCE it is treated like a CRIME instead. Punishing an addict for behavior that they cannot control and then dumping them into a situation where they have ZERO OPPORTUNITIES is guaranteed to result in a repeat of the same failure. Alternatively had the addict been treated and rehabilitated they would probably be a hardworking contributing member of society instead. Blaming the victim is typical of those who don't understand the real problem.

Moving on to the imaginary "dependence on government" bovine excrement that was succinctly exposed by @Reiver already. The Republican MALFEASANCE when it comes to FAILING to regulate commerce has resulted in the INADEQUACY of the markets when it comes to healthcare and education. This is going to be followed by an even greater collapse when the failure to regulate the implementation of automation with appropriate safeguards for We the People will result in even more unemployed and homeless Americans rioting in the streets. Many of them will be former Republicans who will only then figure out that they were being used and abused by their GOP Lords and Masters.

 

Because the OP has been mislead into believing that EVERYTHING that is wrong is always the fault of the "left".

The all powerful "right" is allegedly incapable of ever making a mistake like electing an incompetent buffoon to the Oval office or mistreating addicts and the children of asylum seekers like criminals.

 

I'm not so sure it doesn't. Oh I have to go on and your assertion and you have no credibility.

Produce evidence for your claims that's how arguments work.

 

Speaking of logic. Basic income can only be implemented by government force.

 

Want to explain how left wing economics work. Venezuela for example.

 

I freely admit I can't teach my kid differential equations, perform a tonsillectomy on my son, and help my wife give birth (other than hold her hand) I also freely admit that factory owners chained 11 year old boys to textile machines, and anyone could call themselves a doctor. you want to be a cowboy and live on your own- fine, I want to live in a civilized society that wants the nation as a whole to progress and not just the one.

I am a progressive and I want our society to continue to evolve till all have a basic standard of living. While I believe that We hold these truths to be self-evident: that all men are created equal; that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights; that among these are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.
That those rights also dont come with the equal wherewithal to be able to succeed, and I don't mean Bill Gates succeed but just my mediocum level of success without a hand from the government.

Both my parents died before my 13th birthday. My brothers, sister and I collected welfare. I never would have went to college at all without the GI bill. I hurt my back in my mid 30s, Mass rehab allowed me to go to school and finish my degree. I don't think a person has to rely on just his good fortune to succeed. Many are born to parents who abuse them, who don't value the education that one needs to have, or single parent households. I don't think all those who don't make it should have to work till the day that they die because they could not afford to put 10% of their income away.

 

We the People decided that we WANTED a government OF the People and FOR the People that would enforce the Law of the Land because the libertarian alternative was a complete and utter FAILURE.

 

Venezuela was a FAILURE of rightwing economics originally which resulted in their current situation but don't let those facts get in the way of believing rightwing disinformation.

 

Just because you are a failure does not mean government should force me to be your nanny.

 

Bwahahahahaha! What a fantasy world the left lives in.

 

So tell me about the failure of right-wing economics which resulted in North Korea or stalinist Russia, Nazi Germany, or 1980s Chile, how about Yugoslavia.

It's amazing how all of these regimes arm ultra-left and they all seem to end the in similar fashions.

Is this all because of "right wing" economy?

I find it doubtful.

 

Delete

 

Soviet Russia was also a failure of right-wing economy. Lolol

 

The unpersuasive have only two options, censorship and violence.
Government is the legal use of force. In any of its forms: tribal, monarchical, tyrannical or democratic, government is the legal use of force. That's what it is, and that's why authoritarians, on both the left and the right, want to populate government.

Most authoritarians are not malevolent. They are, on average, as well meaning as are those who advocate for liberty. Authoritarians sincerely believe that their intentions for others are so superior to other people's intentions for themselves that their intentions for others should be imposed upon them by force of law. In my opinion, theirs is a benevolence that should be reserved to the parents of small children. If they simply cannot feel fulfilled as individuals unless they're telling other people what to do, they should have children.