Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
I don't indeed for this to be condescending but how old are you? Here is why I can't get behind a progressive form of government. I remember what it was like to actually feel like I did have more freedom than most in the world instead of just playing lip service to the notion.
My favorite post so far as I'm reading this thread. Short and to the point.
Quote:
Originally Posted by No_Recess
Statism is the problem.
Authoritarian lefties and authoritarian righties are no different in the grand scheme of things.
Progressive ideals are just as authoritative as any right-wing dictatorship in the world.
Their way of life requires your way of life to change to meet theirs. This ideology CAN NOT work without subjugating those who resist. It is a forced collective and liberty must be subdued to achieve its goals.
Basically, they need to enslave (or kill as Marx suggested) the people before it can work. Your rights will be dictated by a body or singular entity who terms what is best for the collective, and therefor what is best for you. There is no individual liberty in these societies, they are a threat to individual liberty and to see such to fruition in this country requires them to tear the current system down and replace it with their own.
You have no freedom other than what they allow you in this society. There is no coexistence with them, either you comply or you die. It really is as simple as that.
So the term "liberal" is absolutely misleading. The term classical liberalism was to describe the belief in the primacy of individual freedom and minimal government. Interesting, how they turned the meaning into into the opposite. Looks like all the countries having "Democratic" in their name but being the opposite of that, such as North Korea, Eastern Germany or Kongo.
The Classic Liberal (18th century) supported ideas such as free and fair elections, freedom of the press, freedom of religion, free trade, and a right to life, liberty, and private property ownership.
The New Liberal (21st century) supports ideas such as social justice, expropriation of property for the benefit of the needy, compelled labor for the benefit of another, and government management of the economy. Those ideas are contrary to classical liberalism, and are an assault upon absolute ownership of private property, natural and personal liberty and the freedom to exercise same.
- - -
What's wrong with socialism, collective ownership and paying one's "fair share"?
"No one should suffer because they lack {fill in the blank}" should be prefaced with "No one should be compelled to labor for the benefit of another, so that..." because slavery is not an acceptable solution to the ills of mankind.
I have yet to find a socialist who wasn't generous with other people's money.
............
Let's be frank . . .
Socialism (compulsory charity) is slavery, genocidal and evil.
Other than that, it's fine.
Socialism fails when it runs out of other people's money -and- other people's children to tax (socialist countries generally suffer reduced birthrates and depopulate - see Europe).
Socialism penalizes the productive, and subsidizes the nonproductive, creating a shortage of the former and a surplus of the latter.
Inevitably, the nation divides into opposing factions : recipients and donors, fighting for survival.
Without unity in defense of property rights, the society collapses into chaos, and a rich hunting ground for opportunistic predators.
But WHY did we fall for it?
Socialists argue that the unemployed who exhaust their savings, and private charity, will resort to crime as their last resort, so public charity is necessary.
But no one points out that the money token in circulation is an “obligation” (debt) of the United States government. Why not issue our own “obligations” (private promissory notes) and use them in trade? That’s what a coupon is - a private promissory note to pay to the holder the specified good or service.
Once people start issuing their own “obligations” and stop using government debt, the bankers lose out. Because they’re lending credit at interest to the government, and usury is mathematically unsustainable in a finite money token system. In short, stoofid.
So in one simple move - liberty money - we can wipe out bankers and collectivists.
Which is why no politician or economist will ever suggest such a solution, lest they annoy their masters.
So the term "liberal" is absolutely misleading. The term classical liberalism was to describe the belief in the primacy of individual freedom and minimal government. Interesting, how they turned the meaning into into the opposite. Looks like all the countries having "Democratic" in their name but being the opposite of that, such as North Korea, Eastern Germany or Kongo.
Good point. You can call or label something anything, such as, liberal or progressive or Democratic or socialist . But we already had a taste of it and it is authoritarianism and not progress or really even liberal.
There has been an awful lot of talk in this thread about how free college would devalue education, leading to unemployed degree-holders (because of course we don't have any of those now, no indeed...)
What people seem to be either ignoring or forgetting is that post-high school education does not necessarily mean a degree from a four-year college. I think we should provide such for those who want to go and can meet the academic standards, but one thing we really need to do is offer alternatives, as well: apprenticeships, trade schools (real ones, not some of these scammy for-profit ones that have gotten fat off of student loans while they cranked out useless diplomas), things like that. Not everyone is cut out for academia, but those who are not shouldn't have to settle for a lifetime of mopping floors or flipping burgers.
As for the argument that some would abuse free tuition by staying in school forever, sorry...no. Most schools require actual progress toward a degree for continued enrollment, and even if they did not, financial aid eventually runs out if you take too long. It is not available for an unlimited number of semesters, and I don't see why free tuition would be.
You bring up a good point with equal work. It's difficult to define equal work. I'm guessing if some sort of equal pay were to be implemented, it would have to go by the BLS definition of occupations to establish some sort of consistency of job titles and roles and such. But going off of the statistics that I think it was for every $1 a man makes, a woman makes 0.79. That alone should ring some bells that pay discrimination still exists in some sort of fashion.[/quote]
The only way we can say that woman are truly paid less is to compare the same exact job with the same exact years of experience and years in the job market. My large tech coroporation recently did a survey where we have enough long-term working women to compare against men, and guess what women are making slightly more than the men. The pay difference in white collar fields is largely due to women taking off significant time to raise children or refuse to take promotions requiring moves because of family reasons. Im not say this hasnt been an issue in the past, but as women have really now entered the workforce in significant numbers (and are staying in significant numbers), I would expect that gap to close on its own.
Let's keep this discussion purely on policies and not start a flame war. This will be slightly long.
I'm a liberal and given most of the ideas Bernie Sanders put on the table during his campaign, I'm technically a progressive as I agree with most of his proposals. I've always had trouble understanding the other side and wanted to get some thoughts to better understand.
So let's start with what it means to be progressive: Progressivism is a philosophy based on the Idea of Progress, which asserts that advancement in science, technology, economic development, and social organization are vital to improve the human condition.
In hindsight, it makes complete sense, the more we know about something, the more we can put it to use to improve everyone's lives by creating opportunity which everyone has a fair shot at. Science is the key engine of this process and it bugs me that we don't invest more into scientific research and development. To start off I'll list some major policy areas that Bernie Sanders campaign was built upon and put in why I think it makes total sense.
Taxes: Tax the rich more and lower everyone else's taxes
Bernie's platform on taxes was essentially to reduce income inequality, raising taxes on the rich and reducing taxes on the middle class and poor as the richest of the richest earn their income via capital gains, and the rest earn their income via working. He gave some troubling statistics where the top 1% owns something like 30% of the wealth, and top 5% owns more than 60% of the wealth. The logic was, if it was true that if a rich person had a ton of capital, they would create a ton of jobs from the top down. Given various statistics among many others with factual evidence, this is not the case. A good one that Bernie pointed out is that even though America works longer hours and becomes more productive, incomes haven't been keeping up with the pace of productivity. Economists have long argued that to create a net increase in aggregate demand, most of the wealth needs to be in the middle class, the actual definition of what is middle class remains to be debated but a reasonable one is to assume 70% of the population, where the 15% is at the lower and top end of the scale. To fix this Bernie proposed a set of policies to help people of the middle and lower classes move up in the income ladder (Namely education, healthcare and equality).
I'm going to stop there because you don't seem to understand the relationship between progressivism's societal benefits goals, and taxes. So I'll lay out the facts for you...
Countries that have more progressive social program benefits pay for them by utilizing REGRESSIVE tax systems. That means the greatest tax burden is placed on those with lower incomes in the form of both MUCH flatter income tax brackets PLUS a 20-25% VAT (national sales tax) that EVERYONE pays.
Read the linked article, and learn. Pay careful attention to the chart that tracks the fact that the higher a country's tax regressivity (placing the highest tax burden on lower incomes), the more social program benefits provided to its citizens:
For reference, that's a scatter plot graph which is used to show a relationship between two sets of data. In this case the sets are Tax Progressivity, and Income Redistribution in the form of social program government benefits and services (health care, social safety nets, etc.). Note that the highest levels of government benefits and services are provided by countries (Sweden, Denmark, Finland, Belgium) in which taxes are flat (everyone pays the same tax rate) or regressive (shown as the negative values, meaning a greater tax burden placed on those with lower incomes). And note where the USA falls on the graph. The USA has the most progressive tax system and therefore is least able to fund progressivisms' societal goals.
You list 4 platforms of the progressives..... And three of them just plain don't work...You could tax all the millionaires and billionaires in this country at 100% of their gross and it would not pay for education and health care.
That's the platform of ill-informed U.S. progressives. The rest of the world knows better. I just posted concrete proof of why that is EXACTLY true. The "tax the rich" BS is exactly that: BS. Doesn't work. Just ask Europe and Scandinavia.
And how does higher taxation not reduce inequality? You're reducing someone's wealth...
Hopefully, by now, you're read my post on how taxation relates to progressive societal goals. And now, realize the fact that income inequality is lower in Europe and Scandinavia, as well.
Wonder how that can be when they tax regressively? I'll let an economist explain it to you:
Quote:
[Economist Anatole] "Kaletsky argues that over-reliance on progressives taxes creates “a perverse incentive for governments to promote income inequality. If the solvency of the state and the ability to fund basic services for the poorest people in society depends on the rich getting even richer, it is tempting for even the most progressive politicians to support widening inequalities.”
And there you have it. Our federal tax base is too narrow and overly dependent on taxing the rich. The top 1% pays BY FAR the highest tax rates, therefore in order to maximize tax revenue, the federal government makes sure the rich become even richer in order to maximize tax revenue to pay for the very social programs liberals want.
Please register to post and access all features of our very popular forum. It is free and quick. Over $68,000 in prizes has already been given out to active posters on our forum. Additional giveaways are planned.
Detailed information about all U.S. cities, counties, and zip codes on our site: City-data.com.
Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
)
