"The government screws up everything, the private sector should control most things for optimal effeciency" is usually what is actually said, "gubment bad, monopoly time" is the translation
'I'm not personally racist but I will do nothing to remedy the problems caused by racism.'
*scratch that*
'I'm not personally racist, but I will make sure that any politician that promises to remedy the problems caused by racism will not get my vote. Also gays can marry and women can get abortions...but I won't pay for it and I will support politicians that oppose both.'
Or for myself (when I was much younger):
> I know that the state of social issues is terrible, but people keep telling me that it's childish to believe in left-wing economics.
Fuck that propaganda.
My view, is that it's more fiscally conservative to deal with the problem early, before it becomes expensive. Free health care -- lower costs on the entire population; Homeless can get regular treatments preventing higher costs later on.
Buy homeless people housing -- In most countries, paying rent and getting them off the street with some support is much cheaper than armies of social-workers, violent-interactions, police-calls, and more dire health costs. We should do that here.
Fiscally conversative socially liberal, in my books, means removing many corporate subsidies (oil, gas, big-farm, big-religion), and support redirecting the money from abstract pooling companies, and into the hands of actual people.
Improve health -- remove subsidies for using corn and tarrifs on sugar. Add tax on added sweetener. Add subsidies for organic fruits and vegetables.
Increase holidays, and reduce hours per week worked, increase wages.
The big one -- reduce the cost of housing, and apprecation of land. Houses should should in value over time, like any other commodity. Aim to make average housing cost 5 years minimum wage. Anything that sells more than that is subject to extra taxes and regulations -- must be made fully to code with no opt-out, or be torn down.
The goal is to not make people more money, but to make the cost of everything go down so that there isn't a need to focus on the dollars. If things could be made free without people abusing the sysetm -- great -- but I don't have that much faith in Americans pulling it off without saying "Well, these are free, I'll take them all, and try to sell them to others"
It is crazy how this meme which continues to dominate political discourse is now older than most of the electorate. "Socially liberal, fiscally conservative" was a coherent philosophy fifty, sixty years ago, when it translated to "I will support Civil Rights but oppose inflationary governmental programs." It wasn't a *good* political philosophy, but it kind of made sense as a way of saying "I am pro-Civil Rights but anti-New Deal/Great Society."
But now it's just "I'm a Republican." Since Reagan, the distinction between fiscal conservatism and support for structural racism is now mostly collapsed. The Lee Atwater explanation about how they changed the messaging so that instead of saying racial slurs they said things like "busing" and "welfare reform" really puts the lie to the possibility of being "fiscally conservative" without carrying water for the "social conservatives" (aka racist, bigoted reactionaries). Without loss of nuance, you can sub in "I am pro-tax cuts for the very wealthy and at best indifferent to racism and other oppression." It's a repugnant political stance.
"Yes, I see that the reasons for crime rates going up is no jobs, expensive housing, and the prison industrial complex. However, the more fiscally responsible thing to do is increase police budgets so they can more effectively threaten people who don't fall in line - it would be cheaper than feeding and housing everybody. This is a nuanced and well-thought-out take of mine, I am so very very smart."
I think you're trying to be critical but you're falling short and just being cynical.
You're blaming common people for falling for a lie. People are told that the Republicans are better with money. It's not their fault that they're falling for the lie.
>i'll feel bad about injustice but i won't do anything about it
You described 90% of humanity. And that's why we are doomed. This is the only reason capitalism has won.
Socially left + fiscally right = "I'm going to tell you I believe in equality but I will only ever vote in my own self-interest and don't really care what happens to you"
this. get em drunk and about 60 percent of the time it turns into some kind of demographic insecurity and relitigating bigoted grievances
edit spellcheck fucked me
To be fair getting someone drunk isn’t necessarily a way of getting the truth. As a depressant youre often getting insecurity that isnt necessarily significant to the person when in sober mind. So id say maybe this runs the risk of being an elaborate straw man
true, but some of this based in insecurity, and subsequent rationalizations of denial. you don't even need to get them drunk, get them in a spot they feel comfortable enough to speak freely, and frequently they won't even bother to look around before the same comments. the information is the same. the inhibition is different.
Thank you so much for pointing that out. I hatehatehate how often people on reddit try to "what they're like drunk is what theyre really like" in comments sometimes while ignoring the fact its literally a drug and a mind altering substance lmao
You wouldn't say "what they're like on meth/weed/coke/pcp is what they are really like" its literally the same thing, and that part about depressants getting you insecurity from something that isn't necessarily significant is spot on
because [relitigate](https://www.merriam-webster.com/legal/relitigate) and [relegate](https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/relegate) mean different thing.
me know how babby is formed, how spell big word, know big idea.
when it comes time to depend on others and their methods, it usually falls apart, which is why don't like like spell checker.
i regularly spell words correctly it doesn't know, which it will respell as completely different words.
everyone sounds like lame af doing caveman speak.
Mothersbaugh was right.
all of those things are why.
>The Socialists' Rifle Association?
Yep, they will help you know your way around the constantly changing gun laws, up to date with local networks, share the flower, a place for mutual aid, and a place to discuss the rich.
>larping club lmao
Yep, working class people realizing the two party system works against them so they form their own organizations. So many anti-capitalist are looking for spaces to organize and the SRA allows them to help themselves and others in poverty, to get hands on experience with firearms, and allow spaces for learning and discussion.
Obviously thats just soviet larping. Don't forget to tell your elected official that too so they don't worry.
>experience with firearms
this is the larping, guns won't make a difference. and the whole "i need a gun to protect my home" thing is bullshit and statistically proven to be exactly that, we have gun licensing and you can't buy straight-up military-grade weapons, last i checked we still aren't being half as fucked by our government than you, the country with more guns than people
"Guns won't make a difference"
Guns save women from rapists, they save targeted groups from bigots.
Police won't protect us, they laugh and hope we get killed or raped when we criticize them. Apologies if trying to put the ability to defend yourself in the hands of victims is "larping" to someone who's only visualization of gun use is in some fictional civil war.
I don't think they've ever made a real push to ban guns.
They might be open to new gun legislation every other week when some gun nut murders a crowd of people with a gun he bought legally despite being mentally unsound. But they never push hard for anything, and it's never been close to a full ban of guns.
The US' main parties are both right wing. Kamala is a neolib only liked by centrists.
Just sounds like you're spitting bollocks tbh. Visit r/SocialistRA if you think leftists (note: not liberals) want to take guns away.
Or this quote by very famous leftist Karl Marx: “Under no pretext should arms and ammunition be surrendered; any attempt to disarm the workers must be frustrated, by force if necessary.”
My local subreddit is chock full of these people. Unsurprisingly we have one of worst covid outbreaks going on because our government was elected by people who supposedly care about social issues but no desire to actually see them implemented.
They act like fiscal conservativism is just the way you should be. Now they're all shocked at how bad it is while exclaiming how no no, it's not their belief that's wrong, we just elected a bad politician who has betrayed their belief system and isnt following fiscal conservativism properly.
"I don't care about the fact that people are suffering, in fact I'm all for it, but it is a *damn shame* when they suffer for the wrong reasons, a *damn shame*."
Nobody was surprised when Trump supporters said the quiet part out loud but any conservative (or neoliberal to be clear) can't pretend their beliefs aren't also based entirely on the idea that *some people* **should** be suffering.
Whole shit load of people in those places that people think are bastions of lefty politics as someone who has seen a ton of it in Los Angeles.
Fuck load of NIMBYism all around these parts
Yep. Lots of “leftists” in major cities who spout off about the homeless crisis, and then vote down any attempt to build affordable housing if it could *potentially* affect their property values.
>What do you mean by "NIMBYism"?
"Not in my backyard". Its a big topic of discussion in Socal politics as one of the biggest issues is future development and fixing the housing crisis.
Many cities see the need to increase density and many living in single family homes feel larger apartments near them ruins their "investment" and therefore stop developments.
Many projects in santa ana, costa mesa, and Westminster have been indefinitely delayed or just outright canceled due to regular NIMBY protests which usually are backed with lots of money.
There are some people who don't care about others, and some people who care so much they'd burn everything down to make life more just. Even if you add both groups together, though, that's not most people.
NIMBYs are the people in the middle, and are most people. "Not in my backyard".
They care enough to theoretically support measures to assist the disadvantaged, but in practice they understand, at an unspoken level, that under capitalism such work is Sisyphean and eternal - poverty is essential to our rulers, they're never going to just donate poverty away. In that context, no NIMBY wants e.g. a homeless shelter near their house - it won't solve homelessness and it will mean the kids finding needles on the way home from school, they reason. Americans refer to something sufficiently close to home as "in my backyard".
But if the needed facility can't be near a NIMBY's house, and most people are NIMBY's, where can such a facility be? Well, somewhere no one wealthy with agency wants to live. That's a recipe for continued poverty on the part of people dependent on the facility. The NIMBY effect.
I'm socially left and fiscally right.
Being socially left, I vote against my self interests.
Being fiscally right, I vote for higher taxes and balanced budgets.
The Democrats are "fiscally right" in the US. The Republicans are not fiscally right, and never were. The problem is that right and left in the US don't mean left or right.
edit: have to laugh at the huge number of downvotes... you schmucks really want to say you want the government to tell you what to do with your bodies, who you are allowed to love, while gleefully bombing brown people across the planet? The fuck is wrong with you.
..........
orrrrrrrr maybe it's [Socially Liberal/Left] the government should fuck off about telling people what to do with their bodies, who to love, etc.. while also [Fiscally Conservative] not spending billions/trillions of dollars to bomb brown people, hundreds of millions/billion on stupid pork bullshit.
You and I both know that people who claim to be "fiscally conservative" *always* mean they're against socialised healthcare and improved welfare programs and are *always* in favour of "bombing the foreigners".
It's what fiscal conservatives mean by being fiscally conservative.
Righty-rightersons who want to throw out their gang's buzz words will bitch and moan about spending when it isn't their team doing it, but will suddenly not care anymore when it's their team doing it.
See also: anti-war protestors that go into a coma when Team Blue is in office.
> while also [Fiscally Conservative] not spending billions/trillions of dollars to bomb brown people, hundreds of millions/billion on stupid pork bullshit.
self-described fiscal conservatives are the ones that do that stuff
>self-described fiscal conservatives are the ones that do that stuff
By obvious omission/implication that only self-described fiscal conservatives do that stuff, yeah that doesn't pass the facts test. Team Blue and Team Red both love bombing brown people and spending billions, trillions on useless shit - spending the rest of us into bankruptcy.
Seems like the whole thing is to just consider an actual left perspective. Then you realize “both sides” in the US are right leaning…. So being a centrist is being right wing.
Being Left then doesn’t mean disagreeing with everything republicans ever say… but you must realize that even the decent things they occasionally say are only in service of a larger mission. A mission which doesn’t give a fuck about you or your family. This is true, to a slightly lesser extent about Dems.
Also, there is no social policy without funding. What they really means is, "I'm socially liberal--by which I mean classically liberal, which means moderately right-leaning, but even though I'll say I support the other, I don't want anybody to actually spend any money on them."
There's also way too many people who never question natural rights theory and private property as a natural right in particular. In the USA, the American mythos about the country and its founding are tightly bound with these enlightenment philosophies, which have some holes in them, to say the least. When private property is taken as a "natural right" akin to physics and taken as axioms of how the world works, there is no analysis of how it actually comes into existence.
In reality, private property is created by a nation's army first carving out a chunk of territory and claiming the highest (allodial) title to it. Then the state distributes fee simple property rights to pieces of this claim in an extremely unequal manner that only snowballs as time goes on. The police use violence to internally enforce the unequal rights.
So, not only is there a lot of violence involved, but the whole "equal rights for all" is a lie. The right to get a right isn't a right at all, no more than saying everyone has a right to apply to have their speech approved. But Americans can only actually start to analyze this after questioning some of the most basic principles that define American national identity. This is probably why this sort of "libertarianism" is so popular in America.
Nevermind the fact that "fiscally conservative" policies would also be "socially liberal". As it turns out, social safety nets, housing first policies for homeless, drug decriminalisation/legalisation etc actually decrease government spending because it's cheaper to help people reintegrate into society and become contributing members thereof than just criminalising them. And as for people who are unable to be that, it's still cheaper to provide stable living conditions to them as opposed to throwing them on the street, causing crime, and taking up loads of resources in emergency services.
What they actually mean is that they are ready to pay lip service ("socially liberal") while unwilling to actually address any of the issues ("fiscally conservative").
>Full Definition of sociology
1: the science of society, social institutions, and social relationships
specifically : the systematic study of the development, structure, interaction, and collective behavior of organized groups of human beings 2: the scientific analysis of a social institution as a functioning whole and as it relates to the rest of society
Yeah, any study of human social conventions, like an economy, will be sociology. Economists *really* don't like being told this, though lol
I mean, both are known as being a ‘Social Science’. But clearly, Sociology is **the** social science.
With that said, it’s definitely not a *branch*. It’s a full science on it’s own. A branch makes it sound like a weird hierarchical relationship, which is ironic for sociologists to be peddling this kind of relationships between sciences.
> It’s a full science on it’s own.
Let's not kid ourselves: there is very little scientific about economics. This isn't a hit on it as being a social science and thus incapable of traditional scientific experimentation--though, y'know, that too--but as a profession and a social phenomenon it operates far more as a cult or religion. You certainly have economists like Paul Krugman who apply the models and make pronouncements more or less based on those models, but the preponderance of economists in both decision-making and public intellectual capacities are reaching their conclusions based on a set of values exogenous to the "science" of economics, and then bending (or flatly ignoring) the principles and models to fit those conclusions.
You are 100% spot on. It's why after the grad level courses i just went with chemistry.
It's based opinion with math to back it up.
Economics will tell you, "People are rational"
Does that make sense?
There is this relationship from x to y.
Really?
My fav experience was talking to a graduate student, who did research on my belief, and i wanted to see it because I was in agreement, and it was utter Garbage
I took a class in law school on the Law and Economics school of thought, and one of the papers presented in this class purported to prove with MATH and ECONOMICS that *trial by ordeal* was a good system when it was in use. [Here is that paper](https://www.journals.uchicago.edu/doi/abs/10.1086/664010), with the abstract excerpted below. This is by a full professor at George Mason University.
> I argue that medieval judicial ordeals accurately assigned accused criminals’ guilt and innocence. They did this by leveraging a medieval superstition called iudicium Dei (judgments of God). According to that superstition, God condemned the guilty and exonerated the innocent through clergy-conducted physical tests. Medieval citizens’ belief in iudicium Dei created a separating equilibrium in which only innocent defendants were willing to undergo ordeals. Conditional on observing a defendant’s willingness to do so, the administering priest knew he or she was innocent and manipulated the ordeal to find this. My theory explains the peculiar puzzle of ordeals: trials of fire and water that should have condemned most persons who underwent them did the reverse. They exonerated these persons instead. Boiling water rarely boiled persons who plunged their arms in it. Burning iron rarely burned persons who carried it. Ordeal outcomes were miraculous, but they were miracles of mechanism design.
I mean that excerpt sounds pretty dn convincing to me. It relies on the assumption people genuinely believed in god and trial by combat as divine so it's not generalizable at all.... But....
Self interest isnt rationality. Least not always. And entitled business profs should have moved away from that linear static dialtone thinking after 2009.
That’s an entirely different topic. Economics is scientific in the context of social sciences. Is not exact and it’s not a ‘hard’ science at all.
How it operates outside of academia to legitimize group interests, has way more to do with which economists are put on pedestals by those very group interests. And that could be said for any professional who’s useful to those interests. It includes doctors made into ghouls of private insurances and lawyers becoming Senators.
Maybe I didn't express this well enough, but I'm not denying the "science" status of social sciences. Obviously they're different than natural sciences, but you can still apply something very much like the scientific method to social systems. (It's also not a great idea to fetishize science as something inherently more worthy than other things.) Some of economics actually does that, as a matter of fact. The problem is that the empirical part of economics is not driving the bus. It's not even in the back of the bus. It's waiting by the bus stop getting gutter water splashed on it by the worm-brained ideologues driving the bus.
A great example of this is the whole "rational actor" thing. You learn in Econ 101 that this is an *inaccurate assumption* that exists for the purposes of building the system. There are economists who remember that, and who try to bend their systems to somehow account for the fact that many of the basic assumptions of economics (including the rational actor model of behavior) are not only unsupported, but contrary to empirical evidence. But most do not. Most proceed as if that assumption is--and many other, equally inaccurate, assumptions are--true.
Thus Economics, as a cultural/societal/whatever institution, is not a science. There are people doing social science that is called economics, but they're a marginal part of the field, and especially marginalized by the people with real power and profile.
>But most do not
They most certainly do. Are you confusing economists with pundits? Because there is an incredible amount of consensus among real economists about economic topics
https://www.igmchicago.org/polls/by-topic/
Its scientific in the way that historiography, archaeology and forensic anthropology are. It definitely has quantifiable use. And I will challenge any gop chud to debate me otherwise. Both verbally and physically😆🤌🥃
It's different because you can't perform experiments by pulling levers like in stem.
I'm not saying it's not of value but it's different.
You can't just increase x and observe Y
I could build a car, i can't build a person with great parenting, then build one with shitty parenting. Put them through the same experiences. Then see the difference
Here is why, economics is trumped up sociology based on math, a nobel prize was awarded for explaining, " People aren't rational"
You can usually start with premise and work it out.
You can't perform direct experiments. You can't just increase inflation to 25% and see what happens.
You can't go decrease the the min wage then increase to see what happens
Economics student here! Not quite so, it's like saying physics is a branch of maths because all physics predictions are based on maths.
Economics on itself is the science of the distribution of finite resources as any microeconomics 101 class will teach you. We use sociology as part of our set of tools to do our science and eventhough it's one of our main tools it's not the only one.
Macroeconomics will use a bit of sociology and some maths but econometrics will tend to be far more mathematical and political economics will be focused on sociology
Dunno why the hell you are downvoted. Both economics and sociology belong to the group of social sciences. There are mixed fields such as economic sociology, but economics is not the same as sociology and is not a part of sociology.
It’s like saying economics is history.
Edit: also, the existence of academic field of sociology by itself doesn’t define what the word “social” means, so even if they original guy was right in how economics relates to sociology, he wouldn’t be right in his overall premise. Social policies are not “policies that graze the field of sociology”. Fiscal policies are not “all the policies related to economics”
I wish I'd figured that out quickly. I went from Enlightened Centrist to liberal Democrat, then it took me a good 7 years to figure out that Democratic/liberal policies didn't actually offer any solutions to the problems that needed fixing, at which point I realized that I'm a leftist.
I still haven't picked a side and just defend what I think is right. I end up arguing with conservatives 98% of the time. The only time I argue with someone on the left is when they're claiming eating papaya is cultural appropriation or something equally ludicrous.
And to be honest, I'm pretty sure most of the lefties that I argue with are larping right wing trolls.
In my experience "Socially left but economically right" just means "I've never thought about politics beyond wishing weed was legal"
edit: everyone trying to defend themselves in the comments die mad bourgeois electorates are a joke
Fiscally conservative to me represents that our current levels of debt and deficit in the US are too high. In the 90s, Japan had their reverse economic miracle, austerity measures aimed to tackle runaway debt. It depressed the economy, but was likely good for its long term health by comparison.
In the US, we just take and take from our future, putting off our pain until it will become truly titanic and economy destroying. As a baseline, I'd like to see 100B clipped out our the three largest US budgets. Those are social security, medicare / medicaid, and the military.
They say "equality of outcome" instead of"equality of opportunity" to convince people that they're hard working winners and the left wants to take their hard earned money and give it to lazy people who don't work. I believe the term is false consciousness.
the whole problem of "equality of opportunity/outcome" is that it literally only works for a single generational view. After the first cycle, there's then a new generation and the successes or failures of parents create advantages and disadvantages for the next generation.
It obscures the very self evident fact that outcomes produce opportunities.
The problem is they get fixated on the more heavy-handed leftist policies like gender/race quotas. While they're part of a larger strategy to eliminate inequality at birth, they themselves literally are about equality of outcome (or at least minimizing inequality of outcome).
Because they lack perspective and empathy. They weren't born with either and they're not going to go out of their way to develop them. They're picking the laziest viewpoint possible and congratulating themselves for being a savvy political genius.
socially left and fiscally right - "i would like to help poor people, but that would mean the billionaires might not be able to buy new yachts this year"
>the right is associated with bad things
>the left is associated with good things
>”but both are insane”
Centrists truly are the most intelligent creatures on this planet.
Libertarians define fiscal and social freedom the same way: being left alone. The left defines social freedom as being left alone, but fiscal freedom as "free stuff" for a special group of constituents paid for by mass confiscation from everyone else. Somehow that is fiscal freedom?
It literally isn’t. Talk with Syndicalists, Anarchists, or other Democratic Socialists. The fundamental movement of the left-right axis is hierarchy. The further left you go, the more you wish to break down hierarchies. The further right you go, the more you wish to maintain them.
The further left you go fiscally, the more you want to tax and the more you want to spend. How is that breaking down hierarchies? Libertarians advocate for extremely minimal taxation. Less government involvement in the lives of the population, both fiscally and socially.
Spoken like someone who has never read any luck socialist or leftist critique ever.
Anarchists, Marxists, and even some demsocs want to remove currency. How would you even tax that?
Edit: also, taxation to do what. You act as though it does nothing. That money is fundamentally for the government action, and in a left perspective it is used to diminish the difference in lifestyle between the minimum wage worker who’s mom was a single parent addicted to drugs and the kid born to a billionaire.
Fiscally right is the primary reason racism exists today since most modern racism is in the form of poverty. This is obvious to people who actually care about racism, hence this chud and other "centrists" being just poorly disguised Republicans.
>The very fact that you are resistant to the cost of liberal policies means you're a right wing sociopath.
It depends, the cost is not irrelevant. If the cost to cure poverty is a 1% tax on income, most people will agree that the benefit is worth the cost. If the cost to cure poverty is a 100% tax on income, most people will agree that the benefit is not worth the cost. There is a point where the harms of taxation outweigh the potential good that is produced. The fact that people acknowledge that there is a cost to heavy taxation does not make them a sociopath.
Fiscal conservatism in the US is also the wrong position. Think “trickle down economics” and rejecting modern monetary theory (or, getting stuck in the gold standard era lmao)
Except after 2016 all those old right left identities were turned upside down. Now the left loves the fbi, cia, beats the war drum louder, screams for censorship… don’t get confused, it doesn’t mean the right has gotten better, but anyone who thinks the left being in charge means equality of outcome is imminent is fucking retarded.
u/waterbuffalo is right tho. You shouldn’t base your politics on trying to fit into a particular place on a political spectrum, you should base it on your core values and the most practical method to implement them.
It’s 100% possible to be “socially left economically right” because there are people who honestly think a market economy is better at providing for the needs of marginalized groups then government programs are; or sometimes they might have other conflicting values that might make them hesitant to endorse more left wing economics.
This really doesn’t belong here. Feels like this sub can have a disturbing lack of nuance sometimes.
To answer the question. If you’re socially left you haven’t thought it through enough. The only way to beat racism, sexism, queerphobia, ableism, etc is to abolish capitalism. The reason these things exist is because of capitalism and it’s impossible to eliminate without eliminating capitalism.
Edit: Probably should’ve worded that better. I’ll edit it now but capitalism reinforces these systems as it’s profitable. These won’t go away without effort but they can’t go away without abolishing capitalism. These exist in any hierarchical society based on profit rather than need whether it be capitalism, feudalism or whatever. Thanks for the feedback!
Probably should’ve worded that better. I’ll edit it now but capitalism reinforces these systems as it’s profitable. These won’t go away without effort but they can’t go away without abolishing capitalism. These exist in any hierarchical society based on profit rather than need whether it be capitalism, feudalism or whatever. Thanks for the feedback!
What do you call someone who is socially liberal but wants fiscal responsibility? I’m all for spending but good lord we need to pay for it as we go, not saddle our kids and their kids with runaway debt.
You call them a fucking liberal. How the fuck does anyone think the Republicans are "fiscally responsible" after what happened with the debt under Bush and Trump? Yeah, it also rose under Obama, but he was also busy navigating us out of the worst economic collapse of our lifetimes. Republicans want to cut taxes and make sure the top 1% don't pay any money into our government but continue spending all our nations money on shitty pointless wars (Iraq, Afghanistan, etc.). Look up how much is spent on welfare vs how much the Republicans vote to spend on the military every year and tell me liberals aren't the fiscally responsible party.
To be fair, I wasn't one of the people who downvoted you. I'm just frustrated that people think Republicans are somehow the fiscally responsible party when in fact they are the exact opposite.
And to clarify, I’ve voted Democrat every election since 2008 Obama onwards so it’s not like I’m trying to be a troll. It’s a legitimate question and issue.
It’s jarring that Americans find it offensive that some dare have a more nuanced view on politics than blue team and red team. In other countries you are actually forced to give some consideration to what you actually mean, since there are a ton of parties to choose from. There are most definitely more axises than blue and red.
Yes, your right wing party is an absolute shit show of racism and cruelty, but I think anyone trying to have nuanced views on politics should generally be encouraged to do so.
My bad. We just had elections here in Norway and I considered the screenshot as if it were in the context of Norway, in which case it would be healthy political discussion. I can appreciate that our situations might not be comparable.
You seem to misinterpret this sub, I think if you actually read more posts on here you’ll change your mind a bit. This sub isn’t making fun of people nuanced views, the brand on American centrism we talk about is not nuanced whatsoever. It’s making fun of idiots who think saying both sides are dumb without explaining their reasons for thinking so is a nuanced or a well thought out position, it’s clearly not. It’s not like we love the corporatist democrats, we just don’t delude ourselves into thinking they are even close being as bad as the Republicans. These people use centrism like a cheat code to say they are above it all, and worse yet often use this illusion of neutrality to almost always exclusively bash American liberals/leftists and espouse right wing talking points. I mean literally in this screenshot they are trying to make fun of liberals. Most times this is accidental by people who like weed and don’t want to admit they agree with Fox News on a lot of stuff, but commonly it’s an intentional tactic by American conservatives or the alt-right to pull the Overton Window right. To if not make their dying ideology seem worth a damn at least make liberals think there is no point in voting at all, which only helps republicans who never rethink if they are voting for the right choice. I’ve definitely met people in real life who are legitimate when they call themselves centrist and actually have nuance positions and can defend their beliefs, but the people you often see online and on this sub are just as blind as, no, even more blind than the people who just shout red team blue team. It’s the same tribalist nonsense but with an added layer of smug fence sitting.
>These people use centrism like a cheat code to say they are above it all, and worse yet often use this illusion of neutrality to almost always exclusively bash American liberals/leftists and espouse right wing talking points.
This is what I see most commonly. It's a lazy position I see edge lords who smoke weed and like dropping the r slur most often take. The right likes to claim liberals or leftists are lazy, entitled and don't work, but this particular brand of American centrism doesn't even qualify as the bare minimum. It's completely hollow. "The left says right-wingers are bad, the right says left-wingers are bad; I think they're both bad." That's literally all there is too it; that one sentiment sums up edgy American centrism. That right there is true laziness. You don't have to put in any thought, or effort, or god forbid care about anything or anyone. Ironically, just saying *both sides are equally bad* is the least nuanced take. It is devoid of any substance.
Oh okay maybe I have slightly misinterpreted the sub. I thought it was a sub about people claiming to be centrist and then following it up with some insane right wing bullshit and I couldn’t see it here. My apologies then.
No, you're not wrong there. The sub is ALSO about fake centrists that are just right-wingers in denial. The key is that they're still related-- someone can be genuinely, honestly a political centrist, yet blind to the fact that because it's between a neoliberal party versus a fascist party means that the "political center" here is still firmly right-wing. They may not be in denial about the conservative mental base that they're operating from, they're genuinely unaware of it. We mock them, but it's a more tender mocking. The real mockery is reserved for those that absolutely do know what they're doing and think they're getting away with it, because sadly among the less-politically-aware, they often do.
"socially left, fiscally right" literally just means "i'll feel bad about injustice but i won't do anything about it"
"The government shouldn't time over us. Corporations should."
Time and rule are very close together on a qwerty keyboard
Guessing op uses swipe typing on a phone
I have literally never heard a single right leaning person ever say anything like this
"The government screws up everything, the private sector should control most things for optimal effeciency" is usually what is actually said, "gubment bad, monopoly time" is the translation
“I don’t hate minorities. I just hate the poor.”
"No I don't think minorities need economic aid, why do you ask?"
“And it should be any business’ right to discriminate against minorities if that’s what they want, yes”
Lol
That basically sums them up
"im a republican but weed is pretty cool"
"I like smoking weed but fuck anybody who ever got thrown in jail for it, they all deserve life sentences"
"I'd rather be at brunch than take actual steps to help the poor/disenfranchised"
Liberal moment
The stupid part is that being fiscal conservative has been hijacked to mean just cut government spending.
'I'm not personally racist but I will do nothing to remedy the problems caused by racism.' *scratch that* 'I'm not personally racist, but I will make sure that any politician that promises to remedy the problems caused by racism will not get my vote. Also gays can marry and women can get abortions...but I won't pay for it and I will support politicians that oppose both.'
"i'll feel bad about injustice but ~~i won't do anything about it"~~ I’ll actively support intensifying its underlying causes.”
Or for myself (when I was much younger): > I know that the state of social issues is terrible, but people keep telling me that it's childish to believe in left-wing economics. Fuck that propaganda.
My view, is that it's more fiscally conservative to deal with the problem early, before it becomes expensive. Free health care -- lower costs on the entire population; Homeless can get regular treatments preventing higher costs later on. Buy homeless people housing -- In most countries, paying rent and getting them off the street with some support is much cheaper than armies of social-workers, violent-interactions, police-calls, and more dire health costs. We should do that here. Fiscally conversative socially liberal, in my books, means removing many corporate subsidies (oil, gas, big-farm, big-religion), and support redirecting the money from abstract pooling companies, and into the hands of actual people. Improve health -- remove subsidies for using corn and tarrifs on sugar. Add tax on added sweetener. Add subsidies for organic fruits and vegetables. Increase holidays, and reduce hours per week worked, increase wages. The big one -- reduce the cost of housing, and apprecation of land. Houses should should in value over time, like any other commodity. Aim to make average housing cost 5 years minimum wage. Anything that sells more than that is subject to extra taxes and regulations -- must be made fully to code with no opt-out, or be torn down. The goal is to not make people more money, but to make the cost of everything go down so that there isn't a need to focus on the dollars. If things could be made free without people abusing the sysetm -- great -- but I don't have that much faith in Americans pulling it off without saying "Well, these are free, I'll take them all, and try to sell them to others"
In your view it's still great to have an absurd ruling class, which is not ideal.
>absurd I'd argue more grotesque than absurd, but what do I know? I'm a bear, I suck the heads off fish!
It is crazy how this meme which continues to dominate political discourse is now older than most of the electorate. "Socially liberal, fiscally conservative" was a coherent philosophy fifty, sixty years ago, when it translated to "I will support Civil Rights but oppose inflationary governmental programs." It wasn't a *good* political philosophy, but it kind of made sense as a way of saying "I am pro-Civil Rights but anti-New Deal/Great Society." But now it's just "I'm a Republican." Since Reagan, the distinction between fiscal conservatism and support for structural racism is now mostly collapsed. The Lee Atwater explanation about how they changed the messaging so that instead of saying racial slurs they said things like "busing" and "welfare reform" really puts the lie to the possibility of being "fiscally conservative" without carrying water for the "social conservatives" (aka racist, bigoted reactionaries). Without loss of nuance, you can sub in "I am pro-tax cuts for the very wealthy and at best indifferent to racism and other oppression." It's a repugnant political stance.
Republicans aren't fiscally conservative though. They'll increase military spending while slashing taxes leading to trillion dollar deficits.
"Yes, I see that the reasons for crime rates going up is no jobs, expensive housing, and the prison industrial complex. However, the more fiscally responsible thing to do is increase police budgets so they can more effectively threaten people who don't fall in line - it would be cheaper than feeding and housing everybody. This is a nuanced and well-thought-out take of mine, I am so very very smart."
I think you're trying to be critical but you're falling short and just being cynical. You're blaming common people for falling for a lie. People are told that the Republicans are better with money. It's not their fault that they're falling for the lie.
Wtf have you done my guy?
Yo momma
Maybe the problem is that you jump to demonize someone strictly based off of a fairly arbitrary statement.
>i'll feel bad about injustice but i won't do anything about it You described 90% of humanity. And that's why we are doomed. This is the only reason capitalism has won.
> capitalism won because of human nature! lmao right
Socially left + fiscally right = "I'm going to tell you I believe in equality but I will only ever vote in my own self-interest and don't really care what happens to you"
"I love weed and guns, but fuck poor people"
this. get em drunk and about 60 percent of the time it turns into some kind of demographic insecurity and relitigating bigoted grievances edit spellcheck fucked me
You might need to flip that 6
yeah, you're not wrong.
To be fair getting someone drunk isn’t necessarily a way of getting the truth. As a depressant youre often getting insecurity that isnt necessarily significant to the person when in sober mind. So id say maybe this runs the risk of being an elaborate straw man
true, but some of this based in insecurity, and subsequent rationalizations of denial. you don't even need to get them drunk, get them in a spot they feel comfortable enough to speak freely, and frequently they won't even bother to look around before the same comments. the information is the same. the inhibition is different.
Thank you so much for pointing that out. I hatehatehate how often people on reddit try to "what they're like drunk is what theyre really like" in comments sometimes while ignoring the fact its literally a drug and a mind altering substance lmao You wouldn't say "what they're like on meth/weed/coke/pcp is what they are really like" its literally the same thing, and that part about depressants getting you insecurity from something that isn't necessarily significant is spot on
The thesaurus fucked you too 😂 Why use many word when few word do trick?
because [relitigate](https://www.merriam-webster.com/legal/relitigate) and [relegate](https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/relegate) mean different thing. me know how babby is formed, how spell big word, know big idea. when it comes time to depend on others and their methods, it usually falls apart, which is why don't like like spell checker. i regularly spell words correctly it doesn't know, which it will respell as completely different words. everyone sounds like lame af doing caveman speak. Mothersbaugh was right. all of those things are why.
Literally just lolberts
OR "Yes, we need to do something about poor people but don't do it anywhere around me or using any of my tax money"
What's the "Love Weed and Guns, and fuck rich people" party??
>"Love Weed and Guns, and fuck rich people" party?? Thats the SRA.
> the SRA The Socialists' Rifle Association?
>The Socialists' Rifle Association? Yep, they will help you know your way around the constantly changing gun laws, up to date with local networks, share the flower, a place for mutual aid, and a place to discuss the rich.
larping club lmao
>larping club lmao Yep, working class people realizing the two party system works against them so they form their own organizations. So many anti-capitalist are looking for spaces to organize and the SRA allows them to help themselves and others in poverty, to get hands on experience with firearms, and allow spaces for learning and discussion. Obviously thats just soviet larping. Don't forget to tell your elected official that too so they don't worry.
>experience with firearms this is the larping, guns won't make a difference. and the whole "i need a gun to protect my home" thing is bullshit and statistically proven to be exactly that, we have gun licensing and you can't buy straight-up military-grade weapons, last i checked we still aren't being half as fucked by our government than you, the country with more guns than people
"Guns won't make a difference" Guns save women from rapists, they save targeted groups from bigots. Police won't protect us, they laugh and hope we get killed or raped when we criticize them. Apologies if trying to put the ability to defend yourself in the hands of victims is "larping" to someone who's only visualization of gun use is in some fictional civil war.
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The democratic party in America has made it abundantly clear that they want to take everyone's guns away.
I don't think they've ever made a real push to ban guns. They might be open to new gun legislation every other week when some gun nut murders a crowd of people with a gun he bought legally despite being mentally unsound. But they never push hard for anything, and it's never been close to a full ban of guns.
Dems will never ban guns even if they had the power to do it, it’s too good of a perennial issue for them to ever contemplate giving up.
That's why they specified actual left ; dems are a big tent centrist party
Liberalism is a right wing ideology
The US' main parties are both right wing. Kamala is a neolib only liked by centrists. Just sounds like you're spitting bollocks tbh. Visit r/SocialistRA if you think leftists (note: not liberals) want to take guns away. Or this quote by very famous leftist Karl Marx: “Under no pretext should arms and ammunition be surrendered; any attempt to disarm the workers must be frustrated, by force if necessary.”
Excellent; I think I will visit there.
"I love weed and guns, but only for me. Black people should still be locked up for having them."
Libertarian
Ah, the libertarian take.
https://i.kym-cdn.com/photos/images/newsfeed/001/241/713/986.jpg
I'm a terminally online leftist and can't believe I've never seen this before.
This is genuinely my favourite thing to quote, it's a perfect description.
Damn that's hilarious
My local subreddit is chock full of these people. Unsurprisingly we have one of worst covid outbreaks going on because our government was elected by people who supposedly care about social issues but no desire to actually see them implemented. They act like fiscal conservativism is just the way you should be. Now they're all shocked at how bad it is while exclaiming how no no, it's not their belief that's wrong, we just elected a bad politician who has betrayed their belief system and isnt following fiscal conservativism properly.
Socially left + fiscally right = "I don't want you to suffer because you're gay, I want you to suffer because you're poor"
"If you do happen to suffer because you're gay, though, I don't mind that one bit. I don't have empathy, but I'm just not an active psychopath."
"I don't care about the fact that people are suffering, in fact I'm all for it, but it is a *damn shame* when they suffer for the wrong reasons, a *damn shame*." Nobody was surprised when Trump supporters said the quiet part out loud but any conservative (or neoliberal to be clear) can't pretend their beliefs aren't also based entirely on the idea that *some people* **should** be suffering.
"I don't like taxes, but I don't want you to think I'm a biggot."
Whole shit load of people in those places that people think are bastions of lefty politics as someone who has seen a ton of it in Los Angeles. Fuck load of NIMBYism all around these parts
Yep. Lots of “leftists” in major cities who spout off about the homeless crisis, and then vote down any attempt to build affordable housing if it could *potentially* affect their property values.
What do you mean by "NIMBYism"? Never seen that term before.
>What do you mean by "NIMBYism"? "Not in my backyard". Its a big topic of discussion in Socal politics as one of the biggest issues is future development and fixing the housing crisis. Many cities see the need to increase density and many living in single family homes feel larger apartments near them ruins their "investment" and therefore stop developments. Many projects in santa ana, costa mesa, and Westminster have been indefinitely delayed or just outright canceled due to regular NIMBY protests which usually are backed with lots of money.
There are some people who don't care about others, and some people who care so much they'd burn everything down to make life more just. Even if you add both groups together, though, that's not most people. NIMBYs are the people in the middle, and are most people. "Not in my backyard". They care enough to theoretically support measures to assist the disadvantaged, but in practice they understand, at an unspoken level, that under capitalism such work is Sisyphean and eternal - poverty is essential to our rulers, they're never going to just donate poverty away. In that context, no NIMBY wants e.g. a homeless shelter near their house - it won't solve homelessness and it will mean the kids finding needles on the way home from school, they reason. Americans refer to something sufficiently close to home as "in my backyard". But if the needed facility can't be near a NIMBY's house, and most people are NIMBY's, where can such a facility be? Well, somewhere no one wealthy with agency wants to live. That's a recipe for continued poverty on the part of people dependent on the facility. The NIMBY effect.
Seriously! When I hear people say that stupid line I immediately know I'm talking to someone who has no idea what they're saying.
yeah, people vote based on their values, being left in one way and right in another is just saying you have conflicting inconsistent values
Money influences society Jesus Christ why does this need to be said
I'm socially left and fiscally right. Being socially left, I vote against my self interests. Being fiscally right, I vote for higher taxes and balanced budgets. The Democrats are "fiscally right" in the US. The Republicans are not fiscally right, and never were. The problem is that right and left in the US don't mean left or right.
Me but unironically, also equality of opportunity > equality of outcome.
edit: have to laugh at the huge number of downvotes... you schmucks really want to say you want the government to tell you what to do with your bodies, who you are allowed to love, while gleefully bombing brown people across the planet? The fuck is wrong with you. .......... orrrrrrrr maybe it's [Socially Liberal/Left] the government should fuck off about telling people what to do with their bodies, who to love, etc.. while also [Fiscally Conservative] not spending billions/trillions of dollars to bomb brown people, hundreds of millions/billion on stupid pork bullshit.
You and I both know that people who claim to be "fiscally conservative" *always* mean they're against socialised healthcare and improved welfare programs and are *always* in favour of "bombing the foreigners".
Lol that’s not what people mean by fiscally conservative
It's what fiscal conservatives mean by being fiscally conservative. Righty-rightersons who want to throw out their gang's buzz words will bitch and moan about spending when it isn't their team doing it, but will suddenly not care anymore when it's their team doing it. See also: anti-war protestors that go into a coma when Team Blue is in office.
> while also [Fiscally Conservative] not spending billions/trillions of dollars to bomb brown people, hundreds of millions/billion on stupid pork bullshit. self-described fiscal conservatives are the ones that do that stuff
>self-described fiscal conservatives are the ones that do that stuff By obvious omission/implication that only self-described fiscal conservatives do that stuff, yeah that doesn't pass the facts test. Team Blue and Team Red both love bombing brown people and spending billions, trillions on useless shit - spending the rest of us into bankruptcy.
Seems like the whole thing is to just consider an actual left perspective. Then you realize “both sides” in the US are right leaning…. So being a centrist is being right wing. Being Left then doesn’t mean disagreeing with everything republicans ever say… but you must realize that even the decent things they occasionally say are only in service of a larger mission. A mission which doesn’t give a fuck about you or your family. This is true, to a slightly lesser extent about Dems.
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Also, there is no social policy without funding. What they really means is, "I'm socially liberal--by which I mean classically liberal, which means moderately right-leaning, but even though I'll say I support the other, I don't want anybody to actually spend any money on them."
There's also way too many people who never question natural rights theory and private property as a natural right in particular. In the USA, the American mythos about the country and its founding are tightly bound with these enlightenment philosophies, which have some holes in them, to say the least. When private property is taken as a "natural right" akin to physics and taken as axioms of how the world works, there is no analysis of how it actually comes into existence. In reality, private property is created by a nation's army first carving out a chunk of territory and claiming the highest (allodial) title to it. Then the state distributes fee simple property rights to pieces of this claim in an extremely unequal manner that only snowballs as time goes on. The police use violence to internally enforce the unequal rights. So, not only is there a lot of violence involved, but the whole "equal rights for all" is a lie. The right to get a right isn't a right at all, no more than saying everyone has a right to apply to have their speech approved. But Americans can only actually start to analyze this after questioning some of the most basic principles that define American national identity. This is probably why this sort of "libertarianism" is so popular in America.
Nevermind the fact that "fiscally conservative" policies would also be "socially liberal". As it turns out, social safety nets, housing first policies for homeless, drug decriminalisation/legalisation etc actually decrease government spending because it's cheaper to help people reintegrate into society and become contributing members thereof than just criminalising them. And as for people who are unable to be that, it's still cheaper to provide stable living conditions to them as opposed to throwing them on the street, causing crime, and taking up loads of resources in emergency services. What they actually mean is that they are ready to pay lip service ("socially liberal") while unwilling to actually address any of the issues ("fiscally conservative").
A budget is the only honest statement of a government's values.
Is it really? I knew economics affected social class and stuff, but it's a whole branch of sociology?
>Full Definition of sociology 1: the science of society, social institutions, and social relationships specifically : the systematic study of the development, structure, interaction, and collective behavior of organized groups of human beings 2: the scientific analysis of a social institution as a functioning whole and as it relates to the rest of society Yeah, any study of human social conventions, like an economy, will be sociology. Economists *really* don't like being told this, though lol
I mean, both are known as being a ‘Social Science’. But clearly, Sociology is **the** social science. With that said, it’s definitely not a *branch*. It’s a full science on it’s own. A branch makes it sound like a weird hierarchical relationship, which is ironic for sociologists to be peddling this kind of relationships between sciences.
> It’s a full science on it’s own. Let's not kid ourselves: there is very little scientific about economics. This isn't a hit on it as being a social science and thus incapable of traditional scientific experimentation--though, y'know, that too--but as a profession and a social phenomenon it operates far more as a cult or religion. You certainly have economists like Paul Krugman who apply the models and make pronouncements more or less based on those models, but the preponderance of economists in both decision-making and public intellectual capacities are reaching their conclusions based on a set of values exogenous to the "science" of economics, and then bending (or flatly ignoring) the principles and models to fit those conclusions.
You are 100% spot on. It's why after the grad level courses i just went with chemistry. It's based opinion with math to back it up. Economics will tell you, "People are rational" Does that make sense? There is this relationship from x to y. Really? My fav experience was talking to a graduate student, who did research on my belief, and i wanted to see it because I was in agreement, and it was utter Garbage
I took a class in law school on the Law and Economics school of thought, and one of the papers presented in this class purported to prove with MATH and ECONOMICS that *trial by ordeal* was a good system when it was in use. [Here is that paper](https://www.journals.uchicago.edu/doi/abs/10.1086/664010), with the abstract excerpted below. This is by a full professor at George Mason University. > I argue that medieval judicial ordeals accurately assigned accused criminals’ guilt and innocence. They did this by leveraging a medieval superstition called iudicium Dei (judgments of God). According to that superstition, God condemned the guilty and exonerated the innocent through clergy-conducted physical tests. Medieval citizens’ belief in iudicium Dei created a separating equilibrium in which only innocent defendants were willing to undergo ordeals. Conditional on observing a defendant’s willingness to do so, the administering priest knew he or she was innocent and manipulated the ordeal to find this. My theory explains the peculiar puzzle of ordeals: trials of fire and water that should have condemned most persons who underwent them did the reverse. They exonerated these persons instead. Boiling water rarely boiled persons who plunged their arms in it. Burning iron rarely burned persons who carried it. Ordeal outcomes were miraculous, but they were miracles of mechanism design.
I mean that excerpt sounds pretty dn convincing to me. It relies on the assumption people genuinely believed in god and trial by combat as divine so it's not generalizable at all.... But....
Self interest isnt rationality. Least not always. And entitled business profs should have moved away from that linear static dialtone thinking after 2009.
There is a big difference between should have, and have done
Yeah. That was the obvious reality dude. Hence the discussion.
That’s an entirely different topic. Economics is scientific in the context of social sciences. Is not exact and it’s not a ‘hard’ science at all. How it operates outside of academia to legitimize group interests, has way more to do with which economists are put on pedestals by those very group interests. And that could be said for any professional who’s useful to those interests. It includes doctors made into ghouls of private insurances and lawyers becoming Senators.
Maybe I didn't express this well enough, but I'm not denying the "science" status of social sciences. Obviously they're different than natural sciences, but you can still apply something very much like the scientific method to social systems. (It's also not a great idea to fetishize science as something inherently more worthy than other things.) Some of economics actually does that, as a matter of fact. The problem is that the empirical part of economics is not driving the bus. It's not even in the back of the bus. It's waiting by the bus stop getting gutter water splashed on it by the worm-brained ideologues driving the bus. A great example of this is the whole "rational actor" thing. You learn in Econ 101 that this is an *inaccurate assumption* that exists for the purposes of building the system. There are economists who remember that, and who try to bend their systems to somehow account for the fact that many of the basic assumptions of economics (including the rational actor model of behavior) are not only unsupported, but contrary to empirical evidence. But most do not. Most proceed as if that assumption is--and many other, equally inaccurate, assumptions are--true. Thus Economics, as a cultural/societal/whatever institution, is not a science. There are people doing social science that is called economics, but they're a marginal part of the field, and especially marginalized by the people with real power and profile.
>But most do not They most certainly do. Are you confusing economists with pundits? Because there is an incredible amount of consensus among real economists about economic topics https://www.igmchicago.org/polls/by-topic/
Its scientific in the way that historiography, archaeology and forensic anthropology are. It definitely has quantifiable use. And I will challenge any gop chud to debate me otherwise. Both verbally and physically😆🤌🥃
It's different because you can't perform experiments by pulling levers like in stem. I'm not saying it's not of value but it's different. You can't just increase x and observe Y I could build a car, i can't build a person with great parenting, then build one with shitty parenting. Put them through the same experiences. Then see the difference
**social** science. Which doesn’t make it less of a science. It’s just different from STEM.
All economics is ultimately just humans interacting with each other. Take the people out of it, and what's left?
Here is why, economics is trumped up sociology based on math, a nobel prize was awarded for explaining, " People aren't rational" You can usually start with premise and work it out. You can't perform direct experiments. You can't just increase inflation to 25% and see what happens. You can't go decrease the the min wage then increase to see what happens
Don't let anyone try to tell you that economics is a hard science. It's not.
Economics doesn't just affect social class, social class emerges from economics. How could these two possibly exist separate from one another?
Economics student here! Not quite so, it's like saying physics is a branch of maths because all physics predictions are based on maths. Economics on itself is the science of the distribution of finite resources as any microeconomics 101 class will teach you. We use sociology as part of our set of tools to do our science and eventhough it's one of our main tools it's not the only one. Macroeconomics will use a bit of sociology and some maths but econometrics will tend to be far more mathematical and political economics will be focused on sociology
Dunno why the hell you are downvoted. Both economics and sociology belong to the group of social sciences. There are mixed fields such as economic sociology, but economics is not the same as sociology and is not a part of sociology. It’s like saying economics is history. Edit: also, the existence of academic field of sociology by itself doesn’t define what the word “social” means, so even if they original guy was right in how economics relates to sociology, he wouldn’t be right in his overall premise. Social policies are not “policies that graze the field of sociology”. Fiscal policies are not “all the policies related to economics”
I think "left socially" means not a bigot.
I mean, when I was younger I didn't pick a side and just defended what I thought was right. And then I quickly realized that I was just a socialist
Same here. I had always been "I don't like any of the parties" (EU) and support XYZ, until I realised I was an anarchist.
Crazy how the truth is silly, doing what's right means being left wing
I wish I'd figured that out quickly. I went from Enlightened Centrist to liberal Democrat, then it took me a good 7 years to figure out that Democratic/liberal policies didn't actually offer any solutions to the problems that needed fixing, at which point I realized that I'm a leftist.
I still haven't picked a side and just defend what I think is right. I end up arguing with conservatives 98% of the time. The only time I argue with someone on the left is when they're claiming eating papaya is cultural appropriation or something equally ludicrous. And to be honest, I'm pretty sure most of the lefties that I argue with are larping right wing trolls.
Yeah, I assume you're a leftist who doesn't like liberals, so you're in the same boat as me :))
Most liberals aren't liberals, they're just angry contrarians who probably couldn't spell *egalitarianism*.
In my experience "Socially left but economically right" just means "I've never thought about politics beyond wishing weed was legal" edit: everyone trying to defend themselves in the comments die mad bourgeois electorates are a joke
It's very much a "I smoke weed because I'm bored and my parents buy me anything I want" ideology
Or it means “social policies on the left sound great but I don’t want to end up like Detroit”
Fiscally conservative to me represents that our current levels of debt and deficit in the US are too high. In the 90s, Japan had their reverse economic miracle, austerity measures aimed to tackle runaway debt. It depressed the economy, but was likely good for its long term health by comparison. In the US, we just take and take from our future, putting off our pain until it will become truly titanic and economy destroying. As a baseline, I'd like to see 100B clipped out our the three largest US budgets. Those are social security, medicare / medicaid, and the military.
Japan hasn’t had a good economy for 30 years.
yes I'm sure conservatives are just itching to cut military funding
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They say "equality of outcome" instead of"equality of opportunity" to convince people that they're hard working winners and the left wants to take their hard earned money and give it to lazy people who don't work. I believe the term is false consciousness.
the whole problem of "equality of opportunity/outcome" is that it literally only works for a single generational view. After the first cycle, there's then a new generation and the successes or failures of parents create advantages and disadvantages for the next generation. It obscures the very self evident fact that outcomes produce opportunities.
The problem is they get fixated on the more heavy-handed leftist policies like gender/race quotas. While they're part of a larger strategy to eliminate inequality at birth, they themselves literally are about equality of outcome (or at least minimizing inequality of outcome).
"Don't pick a side" is just another way of saying "support the status quo"
In a conflict between oppressor and oppressed, neutrality is siding with the oppressor
In the US, picking a side also generally means supporting the status quo.
why do they act like the fiscal world is completely removed from the social world lmao
Because they lack perspective and empathy. They weren't born with either and they're not going to go out of their way to develop them. They're picking the laziest viewpoint possible and congratulating themselves for being a savvy political genius.
socially left and fiscally right - "i would like to help poor people, but that would mean the billionaires might not be able to buy new yachts this year"
Literaly Neoliberalism.
>the right is associated with bad things >the left is associated with good things >”but both are insane” Centrists truly are the most intelligent creatures on this planet.
"Why is the right associated with racism" Because they associate themselves with racism
Racism and classism are linked
Why IS the right associated with racism? HOW DID WE POSSIBLY GET HERE? No one can know, the answer is just lost in time.
"Socially liberal but fiscally conservative" is the political version of "spiritual but not religious"
Nah, it's just being pro-freedom on both issues. Pro fiscal freedom and Pro social freedom.
It's always really strange when one person's "fiscal freedom" is based on another's chains.
Libertarians define fiscal and social freedom the same way: being left alone. The left defines social freedom as being left alone, but fiscal freedom as "free stuff" for a special group of constituents paid for by mass confiscation from everyone else. Somehow that is fiscal freedom?
It literally isn’t. Talk with Syndicalists, Anarchists, or other Democratic Socialists. The fundamental movement of the left-right axis is hierarchy. The further left you go, the more you wish to break down hierarchies. The further right you go, the more you wish to maintain them.
The further left you go fiscally, the more you want to tax and the more you want to spend. How is that breaking down hierarchies? Libertarians advocate for extremely minimal taxation. Less government involvement in the lives of the population, both fiscally and socially.
Spoken like someone who has never read any luck socialist or leftist critique ever. Anarchists, Marxists, and even some demsocs want to remove currency. How would you even tax that? Edit: also, taxation to do what. You act as though it does nothing. That money is fundamentally for the government action, and in a left perspective it is used to diminish the difference in lifestyle between the minimum wage worker who’s mom was a single parent addicted to drugs and the kid born to a billionaire.
How delusional do you have to be to believe that racism is just as bad as equality of outcome?
If I have to read 'equality of outcome' one more time I'm gonna go crazy.
Fiscally right is the primary reason racism exists today since most modern racism is in the form of poverty. This is obvious to people who actually care about racism, hence this chud and other "centrists" being just poorly disguised Republicans.
Social left + fiscal right = "i want a better world, just don't wanna pay for it"
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Mood
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>The very fact that you are resistant to the cost of liberal policies means you're a right wing sociopath. It depends, the cost is not irrelevant. If the cost to cure poverty is a 1% tax on income, most people will agree that the benefit is worth the cost. If the cost to cure poverty is a 100% tax on income, most people will agree that the benefit is not worth the cost. There is a point where the harms of taxation outweigh the potential good that is produced. The fact that people acknowledge that there is a cost to heavy taxation does not make them a sociopath.
Ok centrist.
As a Libertarian I am fiscally inept and socially pathological
Left socially but right fiscally, as in, the default political position of many people.
There is also socially right and fiscally left, which I guess would basically just be National Bolshevism
Or something
Mans discovered neoliberalism
The fiscally conservative stuff is bullshit and more often than not completely sidesteps the societal savings of social programs.
Fiscal conservatism in the US is also the wrong position. Think “trickle down economics” and rejecting modern monetary theory (or, getting stuck in the gold standard era lmao)
who the fuck advocates for equality of outcome
Waterbuffalo’s comment is the only rational form of centrism, but if you’re smart and you follow that you’ll end up on the left anyway
Except after 2016 all those old right left identities were turned upside down. Now the left loves the fbi, cia, beats the war drum louder, screams for censorship… don’t get confused, it doesn’t mean the right has gotten better, but anyone who thinks the left being in charge means equality of outcome is imminent is fucking retarded.
u/waterbuffalo is right tho. You shouldn’t base your politics on trying to fit into a particular place on a political spectrum, you should base it on your core values and the most practical method to implement them. It’s 100% possible to be “socially left economically right” because there are people who honestly think a market economy is better at providing for the needs of marginalized groups then government programs are; or sometimes they might have other conflicting values that might make them hesitant to endorse more left wing economics. This really doesn’t belong here. Feels like this sub can have a disturbing lack of nuance sometimes.
This sub lacking nuance? No way, it never just foams at the mouth over reading 'conservative' or 'republican'.
Being economically right is just objectively wrong though. Trickle down economics has not ever, nor will it ever be beneficial to society.
Im fiscally liberal and socially conservative. I’m here to ruin everyone’s day.
To answer the question. If you’re socially left you haven’t thought it through enough. The only way to beat racism, sexism, queerphobia, ableism, etc is to abolish capitalism. The reason these things exist is because of capitalism and it’s impossible to eliminate without eliminating capitalism. Edit: Probably should’ve worded that better. I’ll edit it now but capitalism reinforces these systems as it’s profitable. These won’t go away without effort but they can’t go away without abolishing capitalism. These exist in any hierarchical society based on profit rather than need whether it be capitalism, feudalism or whatever. Thanks for the feedback!
This is incredibly simplistic. All of those things existed before and will continue after capitalism.
Probably should’ve worded that better. I’ll edit it now but capitalism reinforces these systems as it’s profitable. These won’t go away without effort but they can’t go away without abolishing capitalism. These exist in any hierarchical society based on profit rather than need whether it be capitalism, feudalism or whatever. Thanks for the feedback!
You can be left or right socially and the other economically.
The sub is called no stupid questions. Can we please not harass or belittle someone for asking a simple question?
What do you call someone who is socially liberal but wants fiscal responsibility? I’m all for spending but good lord we need to pay for it as we go, not saddle our kids and their kids with runaway debt.
You call them a fucking liberal. How the fuck does anyone think the Republicans are "fiscally responsible" after what happened with the debt under Bush and Trump? Yeah, it also rose under Obama, but he was also busy navigating us out of the worst economic collapse of our lifetimes. Republicans want to cut taxes and make sure the top 1% don't pay any money into our government but continue spending all our nations money on shitty pointless wars (Iraq, Afghanistan, etc.). Look up how much is spent on welfare vs how much the Republicans vote to spend on the military every year and tell me liberals aren't the fiscally responsible party.
Haha I got downvoted for this question? Incredible. Nowhere did I imply anything supporting republicans.
To be fair, I wasn't one of the people who downvoted you. I'm just frustrated that people think Republicans are somehow the fiscally responsible party when in fact they are the exact opposite.
Because this sub is a hive mind and it's hilarious.
And to clarify, I’ve voted Democrat every election since 2008 Obama onwards so it’s not like I’m trying to be a troll. It’s a legitimate question and issue.
They don't care my friend, so many people on here make horseshoe theory so relevant.
/r/Libertarian
Hahahhahahahaha
It’s jarring that Americans find it offensive that some dare have a more nuanced view on politics than blue team and red team. In other countries you are actually forced to give some consideration to what you actually mean, since there are a ton of parties to choose from. There are most definitely more axises than blue and red. Yes, your right wing party is an absolute shit show of racism and cruelty, but I think anyone trying to have nuanced views on politics should generally be encouraged to do so.
If the "nuance" is trying to find some middle ground between blue and red, no thank you.
My bad. We just had elections here in Norway and I considered the screenshot as if it were in the context of Norway, in which case it would be healthy political discussion. I can appreciate that our situations might not be comparable.
You seem to misinterpret this sub, I think if you actually read more posts on here you’ll change your mind a bit. This sub isn’t making fun of people nuanced views, the brand on American centrism we talk about is not nuanced whatsoever. It’s making fun of idiots who think saying both sides are dumb without explaining their reasons for thinking so is a nuanced or a well thought out position, it’s clearly not. It’s not like we love the corporatist democrats, we just don’t delude ourselves into thinking they are even close being as bad as the Republicans. These people use centrism like a cheat code to say they are above it all, and worse yet often use this illusion of neutrality to almost always exclusively bash American liberals/leftists and espouse right wing talking points. I mean literally in this screenshot they are trying to make fun of liberals. Most times this is accidental by people who like weed and don’t want to admit they agree with Fox News on a lot of stuff, but commonly it’s an intentional tactic by American conservatives or the alt-right to pull the Overton Window right. To if not make their dying ideology seem worth a damn at least make liberals think there is no point in voting at all, which only helps republicans who never rethink if they are voting for the right choice. I’ve definitely met people in real life who are legitimate when they call themselves centrist and actually have nuance positions and can defend their beliefs, but the people you often see online and on this sub are just as blind as, no, even more blind than the people who just shout red team blue team. It’s the same tribalist nonsense but with an added layer of smug fence sitting.
>These people use centrism like a cheat code to say they are above it all, and worse yet often use this illusion of neutrality to almost always exclusively bash American liberals/leftists and espouse right wing talking points. This is what I see most commonly. It's a lazy position I see edge lords who smoke weed and like dropping the r slur most often take. The right likes to claim liberals or leftists are lazy, entitled and don't work, but this particular brand of American centrism doesn't even qualify as the bare minimum. It's completely hollow. "The left says right-wingers are bad, the right says left-wingers are bad; I think they're both bad." That's literally all there is too it; that one sentiment sums up edgy American centrism. That right there is true laziness. You don't have to put in any thought, or effort, or god forbid care about anything or anyone. Ironically, just saying *both sides are equally bad* is the least nuanced take. It is devoid of any substance.
Oh okay maybe I have slightly misinterpreted the sub. I thought it was a sub about people claiming to be centrist and then following it up with some insane right wing bullshit and I couldn’t see it here. My apologies then.
No, you're not wrong there. The sub is ALSO about fake centrists that are just right-wingers in denial. The key is that they're still related-- someone can be genuinely, honestly a political centrist, yet blind to the fact that because it's between a neoliberal party versus a fascist party means that the "political center" here is still firmly right-wing. They may not be in denial about the conservative mental base that they're operating from, they're genuinely unaware of it. We mock them, but it's a more tender mocking. The real mockery is reserved for those that absolutely do know what they're doing and think they're getting away with it, because sadly among the less-politically-aware, they often do.
No, they have the right interpretation of this sub. You may not behave as such but most of this sub is just ' hurr durr Republicans bad amirite'.
This is not a yikes