I’d like to start a series seeking viewpoints from across the political spectrum in general discussions about modern society and where everyone stands on what is not working, what is working, and where we see things going in the future.
Please answer in good-faith and if you don’t consider yourself conservative or “to the right”, please reserve top-level discussion for those folks so it reaches the “right” folks haha.
Please don’t downvote respectful content that is merely contrary to your political sensibillities, lets have actual discourse and learn more about each other and our respective viewpoints.
Will be doing other sides soon but lets start with this and see where it takes us.
So I’ve always been left leaning. But I went to uni for economics so some of my left views I believe are best solved through the market, which appear right wing.
Also I have given up with current left parties for the moment so will probably vote right in the next election.
I think more things need to be nationalised, like rail and water, need more money for schools and hospitals and the police (somehow that’s a right wing view on this website unbelievably everything short of communism seems right wing in this place.)
But largely I think we need more money in the hands of people, more taxes and value needs to be more accurately addressed (externalities).
The belief coming forward in economics is money beats everything. Poor people don’t have enough food? Don’t give them free food give them cash, it’s better for them and cheaper for the state. So eventually UBI needs to exist but cash transfers are the way for people that need help.
Things that pay back in 20 years should be focused on. Subsidised nurseries and free things for teenagers to do.
Rail adds value to the area directly around it so rail is subsidised by a Land value tax on the wealth it creates around it. (Japan does this sort of, they own land around stations). Land value tax in general is great.
This is all going to cost money and people ultimately need to pay for it. So people will have less wealth but if you can free up costs then it can be a win win. More for the state and more for the people. So let’s solve the housing crisis and wage stagnation. Immigration! That’s why I’m voting right wing. Unskilled labour keeps wages down and house prices up, it’s as simple as that. The capitalist win and that’s why they try to gaslight everyone into thinking bringing in people that contribute less to the economy and commit more crime than locals is a good thing. (Stats are out there. Some countries absolutely don’t do this, some do. A lot is lost in averages but some demographics make the country worse some obviously better).
Personally I’d demolish a lot of low density land and build more houses (privately) downtown and link it with public transport.
We work too much and we need to start reducing the working hours and put more money into reeducation. I’d probably give tax discounts to business that set up outside of the main cities too.
On a personal societal level we have also lost sight of what equality actually is. Equality isn’t treating people differently because they are different, it’s treating people the same even if they are different.
This idea really breaks down when you apply it to people with disabilities who have different needs than the norm, and that problem applies to systemically disadvantaged people too. Society isn’t one size fits all, we need to cater to everyone.
Obviously if you need some disability then that’s going to be an exception to the rule.
But when someone says “We need more women in the workforce so let’s only hire women. Men need not apply” that’s not equality. If we said “This person worse at the job but he’s black so we will make the enter easier for him because he can’t compete with white people.” That’s not equality.
Minorities get passed over and screwed over for basic needs like housing, education, childcare, etc. As a result, when someone says “we only hire competent people, the best people for the job, it’s not our fault if these minorities we interviewed happen to be incompetent” that’s already setting things up to reduce their presence in society, which loops into making them poorer, with less access to basic needs and so on. Refusing to hire a woman for one job and hiring a man instead because you think she’s less competent is tunnel vision, you’re focusing on a single job and trying to scale that to the whole of society; the most direct answer is just to hire more people and train everyone. It’s corporate thinking to assume you will only hire a single perfect worker for all of your jobs, but all you’re doing is only reducing your work force, which only ever works for the corporate bottom line until you run out of people to fire. And when the imbalance is so bad, there is a point where, on a large sale, you need to hire a higher number of women / Black people / handicapped people to catch up, because you’ve shut them down the whole time; and that basically makes it your own fault if you think they’re less competent than educated competent men, because they didn’t get the opportunity, because they didn’t get the training, because… they didn’t get the opportunity.
The “hire only competent people = only white men” is a self-fulfilling prophecy because it creates the entire situation of everyone else being less competent, being lower on the decision totem pole (like the decision to help minorities get out of that loop), having lower incomes. If you help only your own because they have the skills you want, you are creating the situation where you perceive everyone else to be lower by your own standards. Someone’s gotta make the first step to bring everyone up to the same level, and you know it’s not going to start in education and housing. Because those people are not up there making the decision to help with that. The people who can make the decision choose not to help, because those minorities don’t have the same skills as this other guy here.
So you’re saying to start a new system where you only hire non white/ non males. Suddenly you have a whole generation of young men/ young whites being passed over for positions just because they are white/ male. So what happens the next generation? You only hire white males because they were past over in the last generation.
No mention of hiring based on lower income. No you are doing it based on race. So rich black people get a huge benefit over poor white people who never had any opportunities and currently don’t but, fuck them right, they are white. They shouldn’t feel hard done by that they are poor have no opportunities in life because hey that CEO is an old white guy.
This is why it’s stupid you are actively disenfranchising people. Sure people got mistreated in the past but misreading people now isn’t going to make them be not mistreated. It just means twice as many people have been mistreated.
I say balance and that’s your take?
Man. I spoke about hiring based on skills the whole time. This imbalance in poor, less skilled white men was already there before you started talking about diversity hire, but you chose to blame diversity hire, because you think unskilled women or minorities get hired over skilled but poor white men. I spoke about improving housing, education, childcare, and all other basic needs, I didn’t say that only applies if you’re not a white man. It goes for everyone. But those poor white men aren’t getting help from the current situation either way, and you seem to think that the only solution is to hire them over minorities. You’re not talking about helping all the people in this situation, you just want the poor white men to get hired and not get passed over for less skilled women - you’re fine with leaving everyone else behind. You’re not even considering that everyone might deserve a spot somewhere, you think there’s only one spot and it should go to the skilled white man.
Pretty much nothing you said is conservative except your views on immigration.
Immigrants are also not unskilled workers, a lot of countries only accept people with degrees or useful skills unless they are refugees.
At lot of left leaning parties historically have been the most against immigration also, but I’m voting right now.
I do think the left really fuck up with how they think the government should control a lot of the market. The government waste money horrifically.
Everyone on this website seems to think I’m die hard right winger.
I’m not against immigration overall (I’m for it in many ways) I’m just strongly against how immigration is being used currently.
Have you considered harm/benefit planet-wide? Is it really better leaving the escaping people under oppression / war / climate disaster caused by pollution from the West? They’ll contribute even less to the economy in their home country.
Yes. Lots of people leave their country, burn their passport then hop the border. I think people should make their own country better, if they want to move to another country they need to contribute more than the average person and be a better citizen (including culturally) than the average local.
My country tried real hard to build up other countries and make the most of them. Now they are on their own.