I am from scandinavia. A very very large amount of refugees are admitted to my country. From middle east and Somalia. A very large number of those immigrants commit crimes. Rob and beat people. There are a lot of shootings between criminal gangs. Etnically scandinavian kids do get beaten in school. And still, wealthy, left-leaning ladys call for ”solidarity”. Is that what a upperclass person with left-leaning views are looking for? ( and how to include the text you want to reply to? The arrow just gives the tag above on my Ipad)

What makes people from wealthy, academical background lean left? — Ansiktsburk

I was raised in a upper middle class home and I used be a socialist and for much of my life I was on the left. Financially speaking everything was always taken care of for me and in seeing the wealth around me I didn't understand at a young age why poverty or homeless people had to exist. On top of that, I worked some crappy, low wage jobs with bad bosses which further solidified my allegiance to the left. My thinking was in a country as advanced and wealthy as the US, why do we still have poverty and homelessness? I was thinking about the big picture and principles first, and myself last. I also had no experience with poor people. They were just problems to be solved by giving them, as a collective, a certain amount of money or resources.

Somewhere along the line my thinking become more bottom-up. Instead of thinking about vast systemic changes to eliminate poverty, I started studying personal finance and decisions which could be made on an individual level. I actually met and talked to poor people (or atleast people from poor backgrounds.) I'm still down for some systemic changes, but I'm just a lot more careful about them. Every problem doesn't need to be immediately addressed with a scalpel. And I hate to say it but maybe some people are actually directly responsible for their own poverty and routinely choose materialism and status over long term financially health, and they know it.

Also young people don't pay taxes.

How do I include the actual text when replying? Using Ipad — Ansiktsburk

Select the text, and a little "quote" button will pop up next to it. Press that and it will copy the text into quote tags wherever the insertion point currently is in the reply box.

I think the access to academics is a big part. If your worldview expands beyond yourself and you start to think in terms of benefiting the system that all are a part of instead of only benefiting yourself or your family, you start to move in a socialist direction. — Pro Hominem

Like this for example. This person is only concerned with their own welfare, and not that of the people around them. — Pro Hominem

I really like this response because it really captures the essence of it. Capitalists are not just wrong, they're bad people according to the thinking left-winger. They are egotistical and care less, if at all, about those around them. They're basically egotistical sociopaths.

If you were to ask me about my assessment of this issue maybe 10-15 years ago I would have said the exact same thing you're saying now. I get where you're coming from 100% and I'm glad you laid out the issue as you did here.

Easy. He or she has a heart. He or she is an empathetic being, who feels the pain of others, and wants to stop it for them. — god must be atheist

Not to triple post, but I find this subject interesting.

There's about 38 million Americans under the poverty line. Obviously it's impossible to know all of them, and in turn care about them as individuals. To claim to care about them is really to to care about an abstraction, an idea. And the mark of a good person, according to the leftist, is that he or she genuinely cares about this group of people - not as individuals, because that would be impossible, but as a collective or in other words an idea/abstraction.

So it's not about empathy, at the root of it. Honestly speaking, it's about commitment to an idea or a principle. It's about solving an idea. Solving a problem. Lets leave empathy out of it.

what you descrbed above works on every other forum using ipad. The above is what I get when pressing that button running on Ipad. Probably not working for IOS.

Yeah, see that button on my laptop now. Guess this forum was built before-smartphone...

So it's not about empathy, at the root of it. Honestly speaking, it's about commitment to an idea or a principle. It's about solving an idea. Solving a problem. Lets leave empathy out of it. — BitconnectCarlos

Thats not what it seems to me, reading eg the FB posts from my friends in the academic left. Its more like just that "collective empaty". There is seldom a solution to a complex question. Refugees -"just let them come, no limitations, we have to open our hearts". CO2 emissions - "We have to find a new lifestyle". And this is from otherwise highly intelligent persons that for most other questions can acknowledge a problem as difficult and take part in a solution.

Somewhere along the line my thinking become more bottom-up. Instead of thinking about vast systemic changes to eliminate poverty, I started studying personal finance and decisions which could be made on an individual level. — BitconnectCarlos

You mean you're special because your upbringing didn't impair your cognitive abilities and everyone else should just be like you?

And I hate to say it but maybe some people are actually directly responsible for their own poverty and routinely choose materialism and status over long term financially health, and they know it. — BitconnectCarlos

This is emotive thinking left over from the dark ages. Do you know how people end up with personality disorders? Do you believe it's all a matter of the will? What you don't realize is that every last ounce of your quality presupposes quality you inherited and were given!

There is no such thing as an individual, all individuals are products of social processes. The highest quality individual is not one who is biologically and intellectually superior, this is a myth, but one who has benefited the most from the advantages of society.

Weird; where are all the left-leaning socialists like @StreetlightX and @Banno in this thread?

Thats not what it seems to me, reading eg the FB posts from my friends in the academic left. Its more like just that "collective empaty". — Ansiktsburk

So what are the limits to collective empathy? Does the academic left just feel empathy with all poor people around the world? How about all poor people who have ever existed? Apparently they feel empathy for every single one of them... they apparently feel "empathy" for people who they have no idea exist.

I'm sorry but it's just bullcr*p. You can't empathize with 4 billion individuals. It's just virtue signaling. If they want to empathize with all 4 billion I'll tell them that I empathize with every human being who has existed and has ever faced any sort of problem therefore making a better, more virtuous person than them.

You can't empathize with an idea or an abstraction. That's not how empathy works. You empathize with individuals.

I don't really want to argue with you here, I just kind of feel bad because you're clearly ideologically possessed. I mean how am I suppose to argue with someone who doesn't believe in individuals. Who would I even be arguing with? In any case, just know that I'm trying my best empathize with you...and the reason I can do that is because you are an individual with your own mind which has unfortunately been completely taken over by Marxist dogma. Anyway, I do wish the best for you.

This is what the American constitution says: "...in Order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defence, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity."

Without some kind of government it would be exceedingly unlikely that you would secure any of these things.
— JerseyFlight

What if an individual isn't interested in securing those things? Under the current system they are simply forced to pay for them anyways! — Tzeentch

You’re not interested in those things? You’d prefer to not pay taxes and live in a society where everything is privately owned? In a world like that you’d still have to pay for travel, security, and everything else.

You’re not interested in those things? You’d prefer to not pay taxes and live in a society where everything is privately owned? — praxis

This answers a question with a question. We can get to my interests later. For now I am wondering how one justifies that a person who is not interested in the things a state (supposedly) provides, nor is interested in having those things provided to him by a state, is still forced to pay for them.

In a world like that you’d still have to pay for travel, security, and everything else. — praxis

Of course. The difference being; there's no state that gets to take one's things, to provide one with services one didn't ask for nor wishes to receive.

I just kind of feel bad because you're clearly ideologically possessed. — BitconnectCarlos

Every person possess some kind of ideology, the question has to do with the concrete nature of ideology. It is ideological to see yourself as a self-made, autonomous individual, when as a matter of empirical fact, every quality you possess came from society. This is not my opinion, not my mere ideology, but the actual concrete, material fact of your being. Have you ever tried to account for the qualities or defects of a person? They do not arise spontaneously, human agents are products of the social processes through which they pass. You are no different, but your ideology makes you think you are better, it also deceives you into thinking that your cognitive abilities are the result of your effort and will. Nothing could be further from the truth. It is I who feel bad for you because you're clearly ideologically possessed. Again, this is not just my assertion or my opinion. The interplay between your right and left brain is crucial to your cognitive faculties, how your brain develops in this sense is not in your power, you are and were the passive recipient of this process.

I am wondering how one justifies that a person who is not interested in the things a state (supposedly) provides, nor is interested in having those things provided to him by a state, is still forced to pay for them. — Tzeentch

I’m afraid that I struggle to derive a fundamental warrant. I suppose it comes down to whether or not a particular state is worth it or provides sufficient value. From what I understand, Democracies tend to provide the best value for its citizens because they’re the most resistant to concentrations of power.

Oh, I am concerned with the welfare of people around me. I just don't believe such concern should be forced upon me or anyone else through government. — Tzeentch

God forbid you be that concerned.

But who would be forcing anyone to be concerned? It's not the mental state of people that would be impacted. They could be as miserly, unsympathetic, uncaring, cruel and selfish as they please. They'd just have to contribute to the welfare of people around them, even though they don't want to or don't care to do so. True? Someone who's concerned about socialism is concerned about his/her money and property being used, by government, for someone else's welfare.

I suppose it comes down to whether or not a particular state is worth it or provides sufficient value. — praxis

Shouldn't that be up to the individual to decide then?

Socialists want to spend other people's money because they think they know best. That's a statement of fact. If you don't understand why that is arrogant, you're ignorant. — Tzeentch

Based on this sentence, you do not know the meaning either the word "socialist" or the word "fact". This seems like a better argument for your ignorance than mine.

Then there's the quintessential bid for moral superiority, which I interpret as terribly selfrighteous. — Tzeentch

I didn't have to bid for moral superiority. You ceded that position when you adopted a set of beliefs that the only people that matter are you and those who agree with you. You stand in opposition to ideas like everyone having access to medical care, every child having equal access to a useful education, ordinary people being protected from the poisoning of their food and environment by uncaring corporations, and levying higher taxes against people who are struggling to make ends meet than against people with access to many billions of dollars. Your only justification for this is you think it is "your" money, but you completely fail to understand that it is precisely the systems that you say you hate that permit you to have a job, grow your wealth, aspire to a higher social class, leave your house without the expectation of being robbed, etc., etc. etc.

It would be hard to take a position that was not superior to yours, morally or otherwise.

You stand in opposition to ideas like everyone having access to medical care, every child having equal access to a useful education, ordinary people being protected from the poisoning of their food and environment by uncaring corporations — Pro Hominem

The real irony here, my friend, is that this fella is a beneficiary of government, and more importantly, he is not going to walk away from it any time soon. I mean, he can flee to the mountains with his anarchist gang and they can all be free, but they had better not be leeching off society in any way if they want to remain consistent with their principles.

Why would one bother with a set piece such as this?

Thats not what it seems to me, reading eg the FB posts from my friends in the academic left. Its more like just that "collective empaty". There is seldom a solution to a complex question. Refugees -"just let them come, no limitations, we have to open our hearts". CO2 emissions - "We have to find a new lifestyle". And this is from otherwise highly intelligent persons that for most other questions can acknowledge a problem as difficult and take part in a solution — Ansiktsburk

What you're describing here is the difference between Classical Liberalism and Bleeding-Heart Liberalism, an unfortunate modern off-shoot. Bleeding Heart leftists are almost as bad as these neo-conservatives because they miscast liberal ideas into these generalized "moral" statements that are unsubstantiated and produce terrible results.

Erasing national borders, environmental terrorism, political correctness, identity politics - all this stuff comes out of a theoretically well-intentioned, but rationally unexamined amplification of this empathy impulse.

A rational leftist understands that these problems are complex and their solutions must also be complex. Sadly, the empowering of mediocrity that social media has brought about combined with the resurgence of the reactionary right have pushed the leadership of the left in a more radical direction. Hopefully we will see a return to reason in the not too distant future.

They'd just have to contribute to the welfare of people around them, even though they don't want to or don't care to do so. — Ciceronianus the White

Using a system of coercion to force people to do things against their will seems highly problematic to me.

Someone who's concerned about socialism is concerned about his/her money and property being used, by government, for someone else's welfare. — Ciceronianus the White

Not really. For many, me included, it is the fact that a government may force individuals to part with their wealth.

This is the problem that is central to the political spectrum.

While I understand individuals may have different opinions on the implications of this inherent tension at the center of governance, I find it disconcerting that many cannot even recognize it.

Using a system of coercion to force people to do things against their will seems highly problematic to me. — Tzeentch

Do you stop at the red light?

The real irony here, my friend, is that this fella is a beneficiary of government, and more importantly, he is not going to walk away from it any time soon. I mean, he can flee to the mountains with his anarchist gang and they can all be free, but they had better not be leeching off society in any way if they want to remain consistent with their principles. — JerseyFlight

This is, of course, the equivalent of telling an immigrant to go back to their home country if they do not like it here. In fact, it is even worse, because an immigrant made the voluntary decision to become part of another society.

Do you stop at the red light? — Banno

When it seems useful to me, sure.

You stand in opposition to ideas like everyone having access to medical care, every child having equal access to a useful education, ordinary people being protected from the poisoning of their food and environment by uncaring corporations, and levying higher taxes against people who are struggling to make ends meet than against people with access to many billions of dollars. — Pro Hominem

I didn't have to bid for moral superiority. — Pro Hominem

Mhm.

Do you stop at the red light? — Banno

What a swift refutation. :lol: :up:

When it seems useful to me, sure. — Tzeentch

Ah. So you are not coerced into following the traffic rules. You choose to out of a sense of utility.

You would follow then even if they were not attached to a set of penalties.

Do you like the idea of their being penalties for other folk? Or do you think we should leave it up to other people to decide for themselves the utility of following traffic rules?

Do you support the removal of penalties so that we may each decide how to behave on the road?

Or do you think that we ought coerce other people - not you - into stopping at red lights?

This is, of course, the equivalent of telling an immigrant to go back to their home country — Tzeentch

No, you are complaining about government, an immigrant is seeking life in a new domain of government.