# The American Left vs. the American People? **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [February 27, 2004, 7:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-american-left-vs-the-american-people/231512 "2004-02-27T19:29:19Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![2sense](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/2/e47774/32.png) [@2sense](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/2sense)\ **Post date:** [February 28, 2004, 10:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-american-left-vs-the-american-people/231512/21 "2004-02-28T22:12:05Z")
Oh and I should mention this is a working class midwestern liberal checking in. ---
**Author:** ![erislover](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/71e660/32.png) [@erislover](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/erislover)\ **Post date:** [February 28, 2004, 10:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-american-left-vs-the-american-people/231512/22 "2004-02-28T22:27:29Z")
> [@Beagle](#): > > Last I checked, “corporations” (free enterprise) – assuming rule of law, and democratic republican government – have increased the standard of living and the technological level of living on the Earth more in 150 years than Communism, Socialism, Fascism, Autocracy, progressive caring bureaucracy, Aristocracy, Junta, tribal chieftan – or any other system yet devised for creating and distributing wealth, COMBINED IN TOTAL. Last I checked, my lifestyle has gone downhill even though I’m doing more work. Hmm. > [@](#): > > Put simply, social justice [(Communism)](http://www.frontpagemag.com/Articles/ReadArticle.asp?ID=12384) is when the non-productive elements of society get to run things or determine where the wealth goes. Non-productive elements? Like the **working** poor? ---
**Author:** ![elucidator](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/8edcca/32.png) [@elucidator](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/elucidator)\ **Post date:** [February 28, 2004, 10:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-american-left-vs-the-american-people/231512/23 "2004-02-28T22:39:04Z")
Paris Hilton is productive? ---
**Author:** ![msmith537](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/d9b06d/32.png) [@msmith537](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/msmith537)\ **Post date:** [February 28, 2004, 11:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-american-left-vs-the-american-people/231512/24 "2004-02-28T23:01:24Z")
> [@2sense](#): > > The inability of people like **Beagle** to understand leftist ideas of social justice does nothing to discredit those notions. It simply demonstrates the limits of their intelligence and affinity for honest inquiry. There is nothing wrong with ideals of social justice. The problem is when people’s ideals conflict with economic realities. The most basic tenet of economics is “there’s no free lunch”. Every “good deed” has a cost and someone has to pay that cost. For liberals, that “they” is usually the government. The governemnt should pay for health care. The government should pay for education. The government should pay to assist the poor. Certainly some government assistance is necessary but for every dollar the government spends, at least a dollar or more must be taxed. Generally those taxes fall on the middle class - people to wealthy to qualify for assistance and too poor to have a lot of disposable income. This is not to say that conservatives don’t also fall victim to short sighted economic analysis. It’s just that liberals tend to take more of a “I know what’s best for everyone” stance. > [@erislover](#): > > Last I checked, my lifestyle has gone downhill even though I’m doing more work. Hmm. Maybe someone can invent a system that requires a minimum amount of work for you. There’s nothing inherently wrong with corporations except, like governments, they are run by people. ---
**Author:** ![Zoe](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/z/a4c791/32.png) [@Zoe](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Zoe)\ **Post date:** [February 28, 2004, 11:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-american-left-vs-the-american-people/231512/25 "2004-02-28T23:51:20Z")
**Dogface** , you have missed a key word in a key sentence in the essay: > [@](#): > > **…There is a small but very vocal part of the left that has nothing but contempt for the working class.** What he is describing in the essay is **not** about liberals in general and he makes that clear – or tries to. **kniz** , I think that you have confused the term _elitist_ with _wealthy_. Sen. Edward Kennedy has not been one to support legislation that assists the rich at the expensive of the poor. There are other names that don’t belong on your list, but his is a standout. ---
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [February 29, 2004, 12:09am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-american-left-vs-the-american-people/231512/26 "2004-02-29T00:09:04Z")
> [@msmith537](#): > > Certainly some government assistance is necessary but for every dollar the government spends, at least a dollar or more must be taxed. Generally those taxes fall on the middle class - people to wealthy to qualify for assistance and too poor to have a lot of disposable income. But it doesn’t have to be that way, does it? We could change the tax code so falls most heavily on the rich – as it did (in theory) from the New Deal until the late 1970s, when those in the very highest tax bracket were required (in theory) to pay Uncle Sam _70%_ of their income. Hard to believe, now, that we’re still living in the same country. ---
**Author:** ![msmith537](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/d9b06d/32.png) [@msmith537](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/msmith537)\ **Post date:** [February 29, 2004, 2:47am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-american-left-vs-the-american-people/231512/27 "2004-02-29T02:47:07Z")
> [@BrainGlutton](#): > > But it doesn’t have to be that way, does it? We could change the tax code so falls most heavily on the rich – as it did (in theory) from the New Deal until the late 1970s, when those in the very highest tax bracket were required (in theory) to pay Uncle Sam _70%_ of their income. Hard to believe, now, that we’re still living in the same country. If it were that simple, I imagine we would do it. It didn’t solve any of the various social problems during that time anyway. ---
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [February 29, 2004, 2:57am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-american-left-vs-the-american-people/231512/28 "2004-02-29T02:57:30Z")
> [@msmith537](#): > > If it were that simple, I imagine we would do it. It didn’t solve any of the various social problems during that time anyway. Well, as I said, it was a progressive, redistributive tax code **in theory.** In practice, the rich always found loopholes. And it might not have solved any social problems – but since we flattened the tax brackets, more and more wealth in America has been concentrated in the hands of the few at the top. I believe that constitutes a “social problem” in and of itself. Not that I’m suggesting a direct cause-and-effect relationship – since the Reagan-era tax reforms were just part of a whole package of revolutionary changes to make America a friendlier place for the superrich. ---
**Author:** ![Milum](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/ea666f/32.png) [@Milum](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Milum)\ **Post date:** [February 29, 2004, 3:43am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-american-left-vs-the-american-people/231512/29 "2004-02-29T03:43:37Z")
Ask Eric Hoffer. On almost every page of his book **The True Believer** : \*Thoughts on the Nature of Mass Movements \* the myriad maladjusted personality types that make up and give direction to the anti-american American left appear with all of their emotional warts and blemishes. But Eric, bless his heart, doesn’t give an overview. But I will and here it is… When you are born by chance into a culture and raised within that culture you are imbued with the central tenets of that culture and by such have irrevocably cast your lot with the fate of that group. Sometimes this can lead to poor luck like the American Indians for example, whose neat culture was unfortunatly outdated. But no matter, any alternative to believing the unproductive beliefs of your own culture is much much worse. Let me give this example in the extreme… An ant colony goes forth through time because of the mechanisms of a very structured society, with the focus being upon the reproducing queen. So if the specialized ants who milk the aphids to feed the queen have too much time on their hands they might have enough time to think and become psuedo-intellectuals who by chants and slogans can convince the warriors and workers that the queen is fat and lazy. And then the unthinking warriors and workers go out and kill the queen. Not exactly the smart thing to do. This is a real _like-example_ of the anti-american misfit American Democrats. ---
**Author:** ![Knorf](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/58956e/32.png) [@Knorf](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Knorf)\ **Post date:** [February 29, 2004, 4:05am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-american-left-vs-the-american-people/231512/30 "2004-02-29T04:05:00Z")
**Milum** , demonize those who disagree with you much? :rolleyes: ---
**Author:** ![Milum](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/ea666f/32.png) [@Milum](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Milum)\ **Post date:** [February 29, 2004, 4:32am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-american-left-vs-the-american-people/231512/31 "2004-02-29T04:32:54Z")
Now really\*\* Knorf\*\*, what would one gain by demonising those who disagree? If the demon is not a demon then let him show his reflection in this forum’s mirror by responding to content rather than by making disparaging comments to his innocent accuser! ---
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [February 29, 2004, 4:37am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-american-left-vs-the-american-people/231512/32 "2004-02-29T04:37:18Z")
It obviously would be foolish, **Milum,** for a colony of ants to kill their queen, who is their mother and the only one of them capable of producing new generations of ants. It would not be nearly as obviously foolish for (in traditional Marxist terminology) the proletarians to rise up and kill the bourgeoisie. Their relationship is very, very different. ---
**Author:** ![Beagle](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/85f322/32.png) [@Beagle](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Beagle)\ **Post date:** [February 29, 2004, 4:45am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-american-left-vs-the-american-people/231512/33 "2004-02-29T04:45:29Z")
**2Sense** I’m used to cowardly debaters that hide behind personal attacks. In case you hadn’t noticed, you are actually proving my argument. Yeah, I’m all against working people. Sometimes I wonder why I bother typing all the stuff to help people get rich, or protect their kids. “Social justice” is code for “government redistribution of wealth.” Sorry to be the first one to break it to the true believers that never really thought about it. The asshole corporations that the Democrats now, during the political season, hate have moved some jobs to China, India, and other places. Bill Clinton was all about the New Economy. What ever happened to that? Liberal economic harebrained ideas come and go. The thing is, that idea is not harebrained, it does benefit the US for other nations to be wealthy. THEY BUY OUR STUFF! I want everyone to make money, not beg for handouts or go to jail for what they say – the reality of “social justice” carried to its logical extreme. ---
**Author:** ![Milum](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/ea666f/32.png) [@Milum](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Milum)\ **Post date:** [February 29, 2004, 5:18am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-american-left-vs-the-american-people/231512/34 "2004-02-29T05:18:37Z")
Oh-hiddie-ho, **Brainglutton** , you missed the point, didn’t you? Just for the heck of it, let me repeat it… Any of you swinging Americans that have yet to adhear to the world-shattering concepts that we Americans introduced many years ago that have completely transformed the simple-minded mindsets of the cognative thinkers of this wide wide world about the nature of the governed and those who govern. These people, you know, have not understood the nature of their very own culture. ---
**Author:** ![erislover](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/71e660/32.png) [@erislover](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/erislover)\ **Post date:** [February 29, 2004, 5:23am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-american-left-vs-the-american-people/231512/35 "2004-02-29T05:23:43Z")
> [@msmith537](#): > > Maybe someone can invent a system that requires a minimum amount of work for you. Not sure I follow. ---
**Author:** ![Kimstu](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/ecd19e/32.png) [@Kimstu](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kimstu)\ **Post date:** [February 29, 2004, 6:33am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-american-left-vs-the-american-people/231512/36 "2004-02-29T06:33:48Z")
**Milum:** \*Any of you swinging Americans that have yet to adhear to the world-shattering concepts that we Americans introduced many years ago that have completely transformed the simple-minded mindsets of the cognative thinkers of this wide wide world about the nature of the governed and those who govern. \* 😕 If anybody here has a clue what this is supposed to mean, please explain it to me. **Beagle:** \*“Social justice” is code for “government redistribution of wealth.” \* I think that’s a very distorted way of putting it. Certainly, all liberal systems of governance involve **some** redistribution of wealth from private property to public benefits. But they also, even more importantly, stress freedom of opportunity so that people will be able to better themselves by their own efforts. That’s why liberals are so concerned about, e.g., workers’ rights, so that non-wealthy workers can organize for better wages and working conditions; and regulation of pollution, so that non-wealthy people are not condemned to live in a toxic environment because they can’t afford to move to a fancy suburb; and anti-discrimination laws, so that some people aren’t condemned to a perpetual socioeconomic underclass owing to prejudice against them. All these ideas are very strong components of the liberal concept of “social justice”. Except for the hard-core Communists, who form a very small extremist fringe of liberalism, no liberal really believes that social justice is about redistributing property so that everybody winds up with the same, no matter how much they had to start with or how much they did to deserve more. Rather, what liberals mean by social justice is giving everybody a fair opportunity to achieve what they want, without allowing bigotry, economic coercion, or greed to put excessive obstacles in the way of those who aren’t wealthy or privileged to start with. ---
**Author:** ![2sense](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/2/e47774/32.png) [@2sense](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/2sense)\ **Post date:** [February 29, 2004, 6:46am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-american-left-vs-the-american-people/231512/37 "2004-02-29T06:46:46Z")
> [@Beagle](#): > > **2Sense** I’m used to cowardly debaters that hide behind personal attacks. In case you hadn’t noticed, you are actually proving my argument. I neither know nor care what your point is; I’m not debating it. I was just kibbitzing on your mischaracterization of leftists beliefs. In a way I was paying you a compliment by assuming you were being above board. There is a third possibility. You could be responsible enough to have researched before opening your mouth and bright enough to understand yet went into your tirade anyways in a deliberate attempt to misrepresent. I’m not sure I care enough to argue whether you were being feckless, foolish, or dishonest. ---
**Author:** ![Beagle](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/85f322/32.png) [@Beagle](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Beagle)\ **Post date:** [February 29, 2004, 7:31am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-american-left-vs-the-american-people/231512/38 "2004-02-29T07:31:34Z")
Another insult in lieu of debate? This time a really haughty authoritarian leftist insult. I bet you really want to shoot me in the head about now. ---
**Author:** ![New\_Iskander](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/db5fbb/32.png) [@New\_Iskander](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/New_Iskander)\ **Post date:** [February 29, 2004, 8:57am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-american-left-vs-the-american-people/231512/39 "2004-02-29T08:57:58Z")
> [@Dogface](#): > > Has the American left abandoned the American people and relegated millions of human beings into the camp of the “irredeemable”, writing off millions of people as being innately too racist and/or stupid to be reached out to? I don’t know about all the Left, but I had an argument with **Stoid** here a while ago about Al Gore, and somehow we started talking about the last Pres. election, can’t recall what brought it on; anyway, says I, “Al didn’t need Florida to be Pres, all he had to do was to carry his own Tenessee”, and she goes, “I am from Tenessee, believe me, it’s not a good state for a Democrat to carry”, which struck me as just a tad elitist; but what do I know? I’ve never been down there. Also, isn’t it just a bit suspicious how the old “people voice” **elucidator** is extremely antagonistic on the whole subject, denying everything with uncharacteristic limited vocabulary and coarse brevity of expression? Could **e** be an elitist? Nah, couldn’t be… ---
**Author:** ![Gaudere](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/e495f1/32.png) [@Gaudere](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Gaudere)\ **Post date:** [February 29, 2004, 4:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-american-left-vs-the-american-people/231512/40 "2004-02-29T16:14:32Z")
[Moderator Hat ON] 2sense, If you want to say essentially, “the reason you don’t get this theory is becuase you’re too stupid”, take it to the Pit, where you can continue your further discussion of Beagle as you like. Not here. [Moderator Hat OFF] [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-american-left-vs-the-american-people/231512.md?page=1) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-american-left-vs-the-american-people/231512.md?page=3)