True.



I agree wholly, nobody can claim to speak for all of the left. What I was really saying is being left in current political understanding is better understood by a person's economic beliefs than by their social beliefs.



Of course they are not, who would say they were leaving? My point is that many of these people are taken to be representative of left-wing thought, when they're more a certain strain of liberal thought, or specifically neoliberal thought.



I'm referring here to something a bit deeper than just a few liberal ideas, but the real Liberal ideas. I think people have lost sight of what our core Liberal principles are, and how to achieve them. There's no debate and understanding of each other's core Liberal assumptions.

In specific, we all use and debate political and social equality. But how often do you hear people try to understand what equality even means? When Ocasio-Cortez wants people to be more equal, she probably means material equality. But why should we value that? These are the real questions that people need to discuss. In short, the value of our values, not eight steps down the line of reasoning of one system of values.

Instead of someone saying "I value small government", or "I value social equality", or "I value leveling wealth", the debate should go to why those values are the right values, instead of them being the end of discussion as they are today.

It's lost its bite since a majority in this country has switched to rapidly accepting LGBT rights, and more people recognize racially-based police discrimination and so forth. At some point, progressive ideas like these just absorbed into the mainstream and no longer became sole domain of progressives.

In fact, I think many progressives are at a loss of what to fight for. Because they're constantly redirected away from the ongoing vicious class war.



Yes, exactly.



When you strip away the sound and fury, what they're saying is there still exists prejudices for white men in hiring and wages. These things are agreed upon by mainstream sociology and are backed by a slew of scientific research.

I don't know why they're addicted to such rhetoric, because it sounds pretty bad. The language barrier between social justice people and everybody else is really big, and I really hate that they can't talk like humans.

I can see how that might make understanding terminology more clear, but at the same time I think it commits to an important error in human reasoning: namely, the tacit assumption that intent coincides with outcome. But there are plenty of people who are unwittingly racist, and on the other hand, plenty of people who maintain airs of embracing an enlightened, colorblind society, while meanwhile unabashedly acting in their own self interest without two seconds of thought about easy (or hard) steps they can take to minimize the amount of racial injustice they perpetuate.

But maybe this is the crux of the matter: can a situation (rather than a person) be racist? And can we be less lazy than presuming that the blame for such 'racist' situations ought fall squarely on the shoulders of people who benefit by belonging to the same tribe that were largely responsible for erecting and sustaining institutions creating racial injustice?

And actually, I think I just realized which term I was really aching to use instead of (the apparently muddy) "progressive": social justice warrior. Oh yes, that word: the one used almost exclusively by people locked in a willful state of ignorance about and antipathy toward the merits of why social justice might actually be a good thing. Of course, I still won't use it, because I don't want to be associated with their tribe (if you know what I mean).

And yet if you look at how evidently tribal a thing it is to keep the kind of rhetorical ammunition around for blithely blaming literally anybody belonging to a particular race (white) for the sins of their tribe--at the drop of a hat--then I think they fully deserve the moniker of "warrior": in particular if you're familiar with the book, Metaphors We Live By, by George Lakoff (which argues that much of natural language is founded in metaphor concerning practical experience of daily life, and in particular, through metaphors about war).

I think you're exaggerating the centrality of economics for a lot of liberals. For many liberals, economic inequality is downstream of "systemic", unconscious bias.

I don't agree with something you said earlier, that economics is the lowest common denominator that unites liberals and leftists. In fact, I think differing economic commitments are precisely what divide liberals from the left. The thing they share in common might be something more nebulous, such as the idea that its important to protect the weak against the strong (and perhaps that the federal government plays a role in protecting the weak).

It's also a problem because the parameters of discourse are such that their critics are shamed for even pointing out the limitations of such research, even when taken to extremely dubious heights. Those are rhetorical WMD's that are harmful to the rights of both men and to the legitimate advancement of women and minorities. Not every single instance of unequal outcomes in life are the result of explicit malfeasance, unless your goal really is some kind of literal utopia where all outcomes are equal w.r.t. all observable categories of people, in which case the only attention you deserve is to be laughed at.

Indeed. In fact Democrats (from my observation) tend to skew toward the highly educated and well-paid. So they'll be the very last ones to feel the burn as the rich gobble up the rest of us over a barbecue spit.

What's important for them is to keep their own taxes low-ish (maybe property taxes in particular), and to be able to do things like marry other well educated liberals of the same gender, smoke pot, etc.

I don't know if it's actually that problematic that that definition makes intent so central. In the 90s and 2000s, a lot of comedy was premised on the idea that racism is primarily a matter of intent, so you can mock racism by saying racist stuff (South Park is a good example, but you hear it in a lot of stand up too. David Cross, for example). I think one reason why that form of comedy fell out of favor is because the view that representation can be racist independent of the intention of the author became more prevalent, which, of course, coincided with changing our understanding of what racism is.

Has censoring our media made people less racist or more racist? Perhaps its made people more racist, because ironically being racist is an easy way of being subversive. An advantage of 90s/2000s model was that it partially neutralized racism, in part because it made ironic racism so prevalent that it wasn't transgressive.

Yeah, and these are people who will unpredictably be wiling to accept a greater tax burden: some will happily be taxed significantly more if it means that more people will have high quality healthcare, but others will be less eager. In general, I think so-called socialists underestimate the extent to which their policies will require more taxation, and how unpopular that will be, even among Democrats (not all of the people who will resist more taxes will be highly educated well-paid urban cosmopolitans).

“socialism provides an outlook that can serve as an alternative to liberal orthodoxy, which allows one to identify the dominant and unquestioned (and often unacknowledged) assumptions that frame most of the debates”

such as your dominant, unquestioned, and unacknowledged assumption that the only form of government self-finance is an income tax.

Edit: or your dominant, unquestioned, and unacknowledged assumption that socialists believe in giving out free stuff, instead of labor control over capital allocation

Actually, you know what? I agree with this. Not necessarily because we ought to "let off the hook" people who unwittingly perpetuate racism (we shouldn't, although surely there are less incendiary rhetorical tools for doing so than telling such people to "check their privilege"), but simply because the current identity politics zeitgeist is a distraction and a mirage. In fact, if there is any takeaway from the 2016 election and its aftermath, I think it (Edit: well, one of them) ought to be that the term "social justice warrior" be rightly understood as a mildly offensive and insensitive thing to label a (perhaps) well-meaning advocate for social justice... but only because the joke is on them. Meaning: they are only really "warriors" in the sense that Don Quixote was a knight, and that the degree to which they've married the success of their political movement to tilting at such windmills should simply make them turn away and blush.

Perhaps interestingly, the term social justice warrior didn't used to be something worthy of blushing over:

[quote=Urban Dictionary]
SJW stands for "Social Justice Warrior", however its actual meaning has changed several times, and even now depends on context.

Originally the term was positive, with figures such as Martin Luther King Jr. and Mahatma Gandhi being described as such when praised for their work in bringing justice and equality to oppressed groups. Examples of its use as a term of praise go back as far as 1824, and this continued to be the meaning of the term up until around 2011.

In 2011 several events, primarily Gamergate, led to the term becoming a pejorative. Many began to use the term to describe people who were overly sensitive and quick to insult anyone who said something they perceived as attacking or oppressing some group of people, even when it wasn't warranted. Basically, anyone who overreacted to a perceived slight against a person or group of people.

However, the term has continued to evolve. While the previous definition sometimes applies, it's now often used simply as an excuse to dismiss things other people say without having to think about them at all, regardless of whether or not they have a valid point. In other words, it's increasingly used as if it's a "get out of jail free" card for insulting entire groups of people. This watering down of the meaning is slowly turning the term into a meaningless insult.

Early: "The late Reverend King's work as a social justice warrior helped lead to the integration of all races in our schools today."

Mid: "All I said was that maybe she overreacted, and the SJW accused me of oppressing all women!"

Late: "She should get off YouTube and make me a sandwich. And before any of you SJWs complain, it's just a joke."

by HiEv August 19, 2017
[/quote]

https://www.urbandictionary.com/author.php?author=HiEv

Of course, this could just be the left being the victim of its own success. In other words: even after so many gains have been made toward equal rights for all, why slow down? We still have more people to send to the guillotine for microaggressions (and then surely the revolution will surely have succeeded).

On the other hand, the right loves to blow up this dynamic: Fox News can have a field day talking about genders and bathrooms. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

https://debates.economist.com/debate/capitalism?state=summary

The Economist asks: is capitalism rigged in favor of elites?

The Economist couldn't muster better support for capitalism than "at least you sad ****s get 400 tv channels" and "so what if rich people can afford a couple more diamond bracelets"

Well, I guess the operative word in what I wrote was "so-called" (as in, "so-called socialists"). See ~11:45 of this video: http://www.cc.com/video-clips/jzbxb9/the-daily-show-with-trevor-noah-alexandria-ocasio-cortez---bringing-moral-courage-to-american-politics---extended-interview

1. Raising taxes on the wealthy by $2 trillion
2. Carbon tax
3. Diverting funds from defense

How's she going to pay for Medicare for All? Mostly, by raising taxes. Is this "socialism"? I'd submit that it isn't, and that AOC is very much thinking from within the current dominant economic system. (Or, that if she isn't, she's being very guarded about what she really believes.)

(Watching this video I was kind of disappointed and thought some conservatives have a point when they criticize her about being bad with details. It does seem like she often whiffs on some really basic facts. I mean, I get what she's getting at when she says that 200 million people are 40% of the US population. She means that they have 40% of the wealth, not that 200 million is 40% of the US population, because that would mean the US is a country of 500 million people. Still, it's sloppy.)

I suspect there's a good reason that Alexandra Ocasio-Cortez and Bernie Sanders didn't run on fundamentally changing the relationship between capital and labor (and instead seem to run on the injustice of income inequality, with their solution being to tax the rich to pay for robust social services). It'd be very unpopular (and would give Meagan McCain and Sean Hannity something real to complain about!), even among large swathes of the Democratic voting base.

Watch that Daily Show interview from the start. Right off the bat, what does Alexandra Ocasio-Cortez say she's all about? Giving people free stuff (to use your words), in the form of free college and Medicare for all. She says that creating a more humane economy (or something to that effect) is also at the heart of her democratic socialism, but if there's a more thorough critique of capitalism behind that statement, I haven't seen her articulate it.

Is it left-wing dog whistling? I'm not being flippant. But that seems to be the power of a lot of these slogans and terms: Abolish ICE, Medicare for all, democratic socialism. Leftists can read their anti-establishment, anti-capitalist views into them, and liberals can read their wonky incrementalist views into them, no one has to make any difficult decisions that might turn out to be devisive and split the party, and everyone feels like they're getting what they want.

That's not very effective. Unless you want to significantly reduce the scope of the US military's mission, cutting expenditures there is only going to create even greater maintenance debt down the road. Plus, while the US military budget is very large, is not really large enough to be a game changer.

That's seems like a non-statement. An elite is, by definition, someone with disproportionate power. I can't think of a single example of any society that doesn't have an elite class that wields disproportionate power.

I don't remember the numbers exactly, but defense is less than 5% of US GDP, while healthcare is something like 15 to 20%. Defense constitutes a much larger share of the federal government budget, though.

But I suspect that she wouldn't object to significantly reducing the US global military footprint. But, yeah, she seems to have an exaggerated sense of America's military power.

Scratch that: I was wrong. The government spends significantly more on healthcare than on defense. (It also spends significantly more on social security than on defense.)

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Expenditures_in_the_United_States_federal_budget#/media/File:US_Federal_Government_expenditures.png

wow, healthcare and income security are yuge, over 50%

looks like we're already socialist, bernie and what's-her-name from brooklyn can retire

but you can't retire tho, cuz we ain't socialist enough

Actually, our government spends more per captia on health care than most first world nations with single payer systems spend on health care. It's the worst of both worlds!

It seems that Stephen Miller's uncle is none too pleased with his nephew's ideas on immigration.

Is that actually true of our government? If I recall correctly, it's true that percentage of GDP per capita that's dedicated to healthcare is higher in the US than any other country, but I don't know if what you said about government spending is true.

She isn’t; she’s a Social Democrat (SocDem).

I assume the reason she calls herself a socialist is because it’s trendy and Americans don’t know what socialism means. Actual socialists (like, send in the tanks and seize the factories socialists) are not friends with SocDems. The latter is trying to prop up the bourgeoisie by bribing the guillotine-wielders.

I suggest reading through the debate, because this is The Economist and it is probably a somewhat more inspired discussion than you imagine.

The US private sector spends a ridiculous amount on healthcare. Of course the government would, too: a for-profit healthcare system is deranged. What else would you expect?

Can an American please explain the way your government reports social security and Medicare spending to me?

Social security and Medicare are funded by special payroll and FICA taxes, and the SS benefits are paid out of a trust fund. These are special taxes. If social security or Medicare were discontinued, those taxes would go away.

How does this accounting work? Is the US government spending additional income tax revenue on these programs, are they factoring in interest payments to securities held by the social security fund, are they including FICA taxes in their general fund, or what?



Social democrat.

And yes, that’s how the US pulled out of the Great Depression without the Carnegies and Rockefellers stacked up on pikes in the National Mall. Keep pulling that thread.

"on" the mall, not "in" the mall

sheesh, canadians

It was the last time I found the numbers. I'll see if I can find them again.



Oh, I thought it was just a poll.

Yup, although I'd maintain she's really a liberal (leftist/liberal designation be damned).




What's the difference that there are dedicated payroll taxes that fund social security? It's still government income, and paying for social security is still a government expenditure, even if in some way its just redistributing wealth from younger workers to people over the age of 62 - 67.

What's slightly less inspired is the site design. If you don't click on the "comments from the floor" links you won't see the actual debate.

Of course. Capitalism is the only social order in the United States to protect, so any American SocDem is going to really be a liberal.

Well, for one thing, because reporting those expenditures as part of the general budget obfuscates the true costs and funding sources for all government programs. It's illustrative that you didn't answer my question about this. I assume you don't know, which is fine (I don't either) but it's also not promising.

What does that figure represent? Interest payments, disbursements, social security funding -- what? Are they double-counting disbursements and funding? I don't know. I'd like to know. If you pay FICA taxes, you should too.

For another thing, it's because social security isn't just a social program. It's a fund that you pay into, via that special tax, at a different tax rate. Your disbursement from that program is dictated by the amount of money you pay into it. It's not the government's money, it's YOUR money. Including it on the general budget makes it look like funding that can be reallocated. It can't.

Including those items on the general budget hide the fact that defense spending is >50% of the government's actual budget, i.e. the portion for which they actually raise revenue, rather than automatic spending.

I'd totally watch Ben Shapiro debate Alexandra Ocasio-Cortez.

Me too. Too bad it won't happen because they both have their heads too far up their own asses.

It's not going to happen because Shapiro has nothing to lose and little to gain but AOC has a lot to lose and about as little to gain.

I personally prefer watching informed people debate, but if somebody enjoyed Jerry Springer then I'm sure they'd have some kind of audience too.

Also there's the fact that Ben Shapiro is a nobody and I'm not sure why any public figure would ever debate him. Which I guess is to say that, in fact, Shapiro has nothing to lose and a lot to gain because he's a nobody and having a congressional candidate interact with him at all would be a massive boost to his reach and credibility. Meanwhile, AOC has a little to lose and nothing to gain, because engaging with him will never impress his audience, nobody who would vote for AOC will be impressed by Shapiro's race baiting or grandstanding, and at worst it will piss off a handful of Democrats wondering why she's wasting her time on a nobody loser internet racist.

that's exactly what eversor said, and i like the way he said it better because it didn't take as long to read