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I think you over-dignify yourself as the "sane" side. You believe you can perceive all the flaws in your opponents reasoning, they're obvious to you - but rejec

• luckylion 6y ago
  > You believe you can perceive all the flaws in your opponents reasoning, they're obvious to you - but reject the possibility that they feel exactly the same way about you. I'm not sure about that. I believe that (calm, observant, not the Yelling-at-you-on-Facebook kind) conservatives today better understand liberals and progressives than the other way round, because the liberal/progressive point of view is overwhelmingly represented in the media, so conservatives are much more exposed to it than any random liberal would be to conservative ideas (unless they specifically seek them out).
• jdkoeck 6y ago
  I agree with the overall point, there are plenty of sane people on the left, thank God. However, I want to defend the idea that some right wing opinions make a lot of logical sense on their own; their being valid does not require right-wing-specific value systems. Let's take one of the points you're criticizing. > someone who doesn't work and doesn't contribute to society doesn't deserve govt handouts Here's the logic: the products and services we enjoy every day are all the product of someone else's work. None appear out of thin air. If they're provided by the government, they are still funded by taxes on the fruit of someone else's work. Why would someone who does not produce anything be entitled to any of it? The basic value behind this point is plain fairness, which everybody agrees on. That being said, I will concede the above point needs refining and nuance before it can be used as a principle to guide public policy. For instance, it makes sense that society should help people who cannot work because of some handicap. The value here is common decency, which is neither specific to the right or the left. Another refinement: what about people who are out of work and haven't found their next position? It's probably productive to help them with unemployment benefits: we can bet they will be back on their feet faster if they worry less about immediate money problems. The value here is efficiency. Of course, these benefits should be delivered under certain conditions, because the overall point regarding fairness still stands. They are not entitled to the fruit of someone else's work if they refuse to give back. So here's the refined point: In a fair society, people who are able to work but willingly refuse to do so should be not entitled to the fruits of someone else's work. However, people who are unable to work, whether permanently or temporarily, are excluded from this point and may be helped through the means of redistribution. The final point is maybe a bit centrist, but still fairly right-leaning in its position. It's very logical, and only buttressed by the shared values of fairness, efficiency and common decency.
  • etripe 6y ago
    > In a fair society That's a central flaw in right-wing ideology. Society has never been fair, and probably never will be. People don't have the same opportunities in life, if nothing else due to the birth lottery. Adopting laissez-faire or "bootstrap" policies doesn't address this problem. As such, it very much is an irrational stance because it is incongruent with reality. In other words, the right focuses on duty over rights, in extreme cases making welfare punitive. The left goes the other direction, focusing on rights over duty: government handout programs with few stipulations for the receiver. The difference between the right and left here is that people on the right tend to presume fairness, and the left prescribes fairness - and conversely increasingly presumes oppression. > the fruits of someone else's work This is another, ignoring that we're social creatures and only thrived as a species because of co-operation. The left exaggerates in the other direction, pretending like we don't have a selfish gene and nowadays confusing outcome with opportunity. Individualism versus collectivism. > efficiency Yet the following are right-wing policies: teaching abstinence, the war on drugs, budget cuts to education... You might be right in some areas, but your definition of efficiency would need to be narrowed down specifically to budgetary efficiency. In the context of your example, yes, it it more efficient to help someone financially while they're unemployed. It's also more efficient to decriminalise drugs and prostitution, to inform kids about sex and drugs, and to invest in education (as a proxy for success in life). > common decency Which has no objective definition by default. I don't think there is such a thing as a political stance that is free from emotional axioms. At best, the political ideology can be internally consistent, with one point logically flowing from the basic principles, but there is always an external dependency on emotion. That said, there definitely is value in right-wing principles, just as there is in left-wing principles. The key is not becoming too entrenched or foaming at the mouth.
    • nickalaso 6y ago
      As a conservative, its not that educated conservatives think society is "fair", in that their aren't people with more or less advantages. Rather, we accept that life is "fair enough", and true equality, in the sense that everyone has the exact same capital/life outcomes is worse for society than it is good. To be more fair, is better, in the sense that rewarding meritocracy is the goal, but even here there is a fundamental unavoidable unfairness born out of the natural talents and genetic predispositions of individuals making them uniquely advantaged for a given sport, field, career, etc.