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I'm a center-left social democrat and believe in mitigating climate change for its own sake. If anthropogenic climate change weren't occurring, there would be n

I'm a center-left social democrat and believe in mitigating climate change for its own sake. If anthropogenic climate change weren't occurring, there would be no need for climate-oriented conservation. I'm pretty sure the vast majority of people with political leanings similar to mine would agree with that statement. For most proponents, the purpose of climate mitigation measures is in fact to mitigate climate change. Assuming otherwise is plainly not to ascribe good faith to one's opponents.

rayiner 7y ago
It’s not a matter of ascribing good faith to any particular person’s arguments, but considering the trajectory of a movement as a whole. If you asked someone who supported the ACLU’s challenges Establishment Clause challenges in the 1950s whether the wanted to see a systematic erasure of religion from every aspect of public life, they wouldn’t necessarily have agreed with that outcome. But that was the result. This is not an abstract concern about slippery slopes. It’s the fact that now only a minority of Democrats have a positive view of capitalism, and a majority view socialism positively. It’s the actual stated principles of climate justice leaders who have launched a broadside attack on capitalism, trying to associate it with everything from climate change to racism to colonialism. It’s based on things like the Green New Deal concededly using climate change as a pretext for massive economic restructuring. Regardless of your views, you can’t help whose driving the bus you’re on.
- pcwalton 7y ago
  Do you honestly think that if you put this to a poll: "In your view, is the purpose of addressing climate change: (a) to address climate change as an end in itself, or (b) a means for advancing socialism?" that most Democrats in the US would choose option (b)?
  - rayiner 7y ago
    This is the poll I’m worried about: (a) is capitalism a tool that has lifted tens of millions of people in the developing world out of poverty, or a tool for perpetuating racism, and colonialism, and environmental degradation? (b) do you know that big-S socialists, including one of the architects of the Green New Deal, have latched onto climate justice as a tool for advancing socialism and attacking the liberal capitalist consensus: https://jacobinmag.com/series/green-new-deal; https://jacobinmag.com/series/green-new-deal; https://newconsensus.com https://newconsensus.com ? (c) in light of (a), what political compromises would you make with the people in (b) to address climate change?
    - deleted 7y ago
      [deleted]
- NeedMoreTea 7y ago
  You can be on the right and have an extremely dim view of unfettered, and out of control global capitalism, as we currently have. 40 years of an experiment where the only answer to everything is less government, fewer regulations, lower taxes and damn the economics. That's from both sides. Clinton as bad as Bush. Blair as bad as Thatcher. You're kind of right about who's driving that bus - we've really been given no choice, have we? Both sides have offered a destination that takes only right turns. Forcibly dragging capitalism back to a more inclusive middle ground, nearer where Eisenhower was politically, is hardly revolutionary socialism. Nor is wanting stronger constraints and taxes with fewer loopholes to the corporate machine. Enough to smooth the roughest edges, and limit the worst abuses. That is hardly exclusive to the left, outside the political and media bubble.
  - rayiner 7y ago
    Except the last 40 years have seen the greatest expansion of prosperity in the history of the world. Countries that flirted with socialism, like India, started growing twice as fast when they made market reforms. Europe, which was moribund under more socialist and regulated times, has become economically vibrant under Thatcher and her ideological offspring. Moving back to the Eisenhower era would in fact hurt people. That was an economy where the government decided everything from what price an airline could charge for a flight to what routes a trucking company could run. It’s a roll back to an economic model that has been rejected throughout the developed world. There is a reason that everyone from Canadians to Australians to Germans to Swedes have kept electing market oriented liberals who kept pushing down government spending, corporate taxes, and regulation. Heck, Macron, the “socialist” candidate, is still pro-markets and pro-deregulation. (And socialist France has one of the lowest corporate tax rates in the world.)
    - NeedMoreTea 7y ago
      For the 1%. For most typical workers, and the middle and lower tiers particularly it's seen stagnation and decline. The expansion has been in the developing economies. Which for a worker in USA or Europe, who has seen all the opportunity go to an ever dwindling proportion of society, makes for an empty statistic The French Socialist Party is most definitely not in this day and age socialist, and hasn't been for decades, just as Blair's Labour wan't socialist. They sit firmly in the centre, and are a centre left party nearer the British LibDems than Labour. In a US context, well there's not really a match, as it's too bipartisan. Macron, the former financial regulator and Rothchild banker, is worlds away from and would be unrecognisable to Mitterand. Yet Mitterand was of the same party. So no, France is not socialist.

rayiner 7y ago

It’s not a matter of ascribing good faith to any particular person’s arguments, but considering the trajectory of a movement as a whole. If you asked someone who supported the ACLU’s challenges Establishment Clause challenges in the 1950s whether the wanted to see a systematic erasure of religion from every aspect of public life, they wouldn’t necessarily have agreed with that outcome. But that was the result. This is not an abstract concern about slippery slopes. It’s the fact that now only a minority of Democrats have a positive view of capitalism, and a majority view socialism positively. It’s the actual stated principles of climate justice leaders who have launched a broadside attack on capitalism, trying to associate it with everything from climate change to racism to colonialism. It’s based on things like the Green New Deal concededly using climate change as a pretext for massive economic restructuring. Regardless of your views, you can’t help whose driving the bus you’re on.

pcwalton 7y ago
Do you honestly think that if you put this to a poll: "In your view, is the purpose of addressing climate change: (a) to address climate change as an end in itself, or (b) a means for advancing socialism?" that most Democrats in the US would choose option (b)?
- rayiner 7y ago
  This is the poll I’m worried about: (a) is capitalism a tool that has lifted tens of millions of people in the developing world out of poverty, or a tool for perpetuating racism, and colonialism, and environmental degradation? (b) do you know that big-S socialists, including one of the architects of the Green New Deal, have latched onto climate justice as a tool for advancing socialism and attacking the liberal capitalist consensus: https://jacobinmag.com/series/green-new-deal; https://jacobinmag.com/series/green-new-deal; https://newconsensus.com https://newconsensus.com ? (c) in light of (a), what political compromises would you make with the people in (b) to address climate change?
  - deleted 7y ago
    [deleted]
NeedMoreTea 7y ago
You can be on the right and have an extremely dim view of unfettered, and out of control global capitalism, as we currently have. 40 years of an experiment where the only answer to everything is less government, fewer regulations, lower taxes and damn the economics. That's from both sides. Clinton as bad as Bush. Blair as bad as Thatcher. You're kind of right about who's driving that bus - we've really been given no choice, have we? Both sides have offered a destination that takes only right turns. Forcibly dragging capitalism back to a more inclusive middle ground, nearer where Eisenhower was politically, is hardly revolutionary socialism. Nor is wanting stronger constraints and taxes with fewer loopholes to the corporate machine. Enough to smooth the roughest edges, and limit the worst abuses. That is hardly exclusive to the left, outside the political and media bubble.
- rayiner 7y ago
  Except the last 40 years have seen the greatest expansion of prosperity in the history of the world. Countries that flirted with socialism, like India, started growing twice as fast when they made market reforms. Europe, which was moribund under more socialist and regulated times, has become economically vibrant under Thatcher and her ideological offspring. Moving back to the Eisenhower era would in fact hurt people. That was an economy where the government decided everything from what price an airline could charge for a flight to what routes a trucking company could run. It’s a roll back to an economic model that has been rejected throughout the developed world. There is a reason that everyone from Canadians to Australians to Germans to Swedes have kept electing market oriented liberals who kept pushing down government spending, corporate taxes, and regulation. Heck, Macron, the “socialist” candidate, is still pro-markets and pro-deregulation. (And socialist France has one of the lowest corporate tax rates in the world.)
  - NeedMoreTea 7y ago
    For the 1%. For most typical workers, and the middle and lower tiers particularly it's seen stagnation and decline. The expansion has been in the developing economies. Which for a worker in USA or Europe, who has seen all the opportunity go to an ever dwindling proportion of society, makes for an empty statistic The French Socialist Party is most definitely not in this day and age socialist, and hasn't been for decades, just as Blair's Labour wan't socialist. They sit firmly in the centre, and are a centre left party nearer the British LibDems than Labour. In a US context, well there's not really a match, as it's too bipartisan. Macron, the former financial regulator and Rothchild banker, is worlds away from and would be unrecognisable to Mitterand. Yet Mitterand was of the same party. So no, France is not socialist.