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What are you disagreeing about, exactly? The European "right-wing" is socialist by American standards and the American "liberals" are right-wing by European st

by pluma 11y ago

What are you disagreeing about, exactly? The European "right-wing" is socialist by American standards and the American "liberals" are right-wing by European standards. Heck, the only reasons Americans think "small government" is the solution (and that it has to be an all-or-nothing decision) is that the government they have is bullshit. You can have regulations without having a "nanny state" that dictates every aspect of your life. You can have privacy and welfare and socialised health care and various other kinds of good things without "socialism". Americans, generally speaking, don't care about other people. Personal responsibility is the highest good: if you made it, it was your personal achievements that got you to where you are; if you end up in a bad situation, it was your own failings and bad decisions that got you there. But that has nothing to do with liberalism or capitalism. In fact, it's quite anti-liberal. Without regulation, capitalism eats its children: you get monopolies and oligopolies, innovation stagnates and new competitors are either acquired or driven out of the market; you also provide no incentive for moral responsibility to the consumers. Randian "libertarianism" is deeply flawed and sociopathic.

rebootthesystem 11y ago
I think the problem with the way you are seeing things is what I call the "Star Trek View of the Universe". This is where all Vulcans are the same, all Klingons are the same, all <insert planet> are the same. Example: > Americans, generally speaking, don't care about other people. That's not even close to being true. A cursory google search reveals that the US is at the top of the list of nations engaged in charitable donations, foreign aid and other metrics of generosity that clearly indicate that we do care about other people. And, no, Americans are not a homogeneous herd that thinks and behaves the same way. And that's why the problems and the solutions are sometimes very hard to sort out. Yet I'll take this any day to some of what goes on in many nations around the globe.

by pluma 11y ago

rebootthesystem 11y ago

I think the problem with the way you are seeing things is what I call the "Star Trek View of the Universe". This is where all Vulcans are the same, all Klingons are the same, all <insert planet> are the same. Example: > Americans, generally speaking, don't care about other people. That's not even close to being true. A cursory google search reveals that the US is at the top of the list of nations engaged in charitable donations, foreign aid and other metrics of generosity that clearly indicate that we do care about other people. And, no, Americans are not a homogeneous herd that thinks and behaves the same way. And that's why the problems and the solutions are sometimes very hard to sort out. Yet I'll take this any day to some of what goes on in many nations around the globe.