[ExI] Be nice to leftists

[William Flynn Wallace]

On Mon, Jun 2, 2014 at 5:54 AM, Jukka Liukkonen <jukka.liukkonen at iki.fi>
wrote:

> What is left about?
>
> - Leftists want affordable (or free) healthcare for everyone. Not just for
> the well paying middle class, but also for the illegal aliens and even the
> poorest homeless alcoholics. This is because leftists see that human value
> is intrinsic, humanity is not for sale and everyone are equal. Everyone
> deserve to be treated with dignity and respect, since everyone are equal
> members of the society. Maternal care and affordable high quality
> healthcare have resulted higher quality life and longer life expectancy.
>
> - Same goes with education. In Scandinavia, where left wing ideas have
> been traditionally strong, schools and universities have been tuition-free,
> the school cafeterias give pupils free lunch and school books need not be
> bought since state provides them for free. Genuinely accessible education
> has meant genuine equality: everyone can rise up social ladders if they are
> skilled, creative or clever. Likewise wealthy or successful people's
> offsprings can fail, but their children can again rise up if on their own
> merits. Class is not merely result of your parents wealth, it's about your
> own merits and hard work.
>
> - This does not mean people are drained in taxes. As the population is
> highly educated, the state is able design its functions more smart and more
> optimal than less educated and less knowledgeable administration would.
> Thus it is able to produce high quality services cheaper and more
> abundantly available than what the private sector would. The public
> healthcare needs not take their cut and make profit, they can use all their
> resources to actual care. With scale benefits the public sector is able to
> purchase large quantities of medication for cheaper prices than the private
> sector would. Basically leftist countries are able to provide the best
> parts of capitalism for everyone without excessive costs.
>
> - Leftists want ecologically sustainable world, that will have healthy
> food, plenty of species, fresh water, breathable air, and biodiversity for
> the future generations too. Currently every 60 seconds one species goes
> extinct. Capitalism and industrial revolution have started mass extinction
> wave of species. Every day we may lose cure for cancer and other deadly
> diseases, just so you can buy unhealthy cheap burgers produced by exploited
> workers in global south and in western countries. Meanwhile air, water and
> soil contaminants cause cancer, diseases, respiratory problems, asthma,
> lower life quality and life expectancy reduction. By keeping the nature
> green, this can be avoided.
>
> - Which leads us to human rights: the left is strong about human rights,
> this is why the left opposes wars. Wars are in modern world mostly about
> resources and money. The day Afghanistan was captured the oil contracts
> were revised. The human rights have not been revised. Wars are only about
> the money. And the money goes to the richest 1%. Leftists believe in
> democracy and war is not democratic: it is about power of physically
> stronger dominating the weaker, it is about killing, torturing, using
> force, restricting basic freedoms, suppressing the free press and giving
> the power to military instead of democratic leaders.
>
> - Maybe not for authoritarian communists, but for the rest of the left
> wing the democracy is key concern and objective. Left wing has fought for
> century for universal suffrage. Not just for women but also for the poor. A
> century ago the right to vote was tied to economical possessions, not just
> to male sex. Left wing has successfully achieved this goal, of course not
> alone, many other have been involved too. But left is all about
> cooperation, anyways! Democracy is not only about checking a ballot once
> every four to six years. It is about freedom of expression and active civil
> society. The left wing has been active in promoting participation of the
> civil society to decision making and bringing new forms of local democracy.
>
> Left wing is about a whole lot more, but this is a short introduction for
> the subject.
>
>
> The left wing is a very broad term, which includes everyone from marxists
> to anarchists, but most are mild social democrats or a bit more
> ecologically oriented green leftists. Like wise, the right wing includes
> anything from Pinochet to Obama and from Hitler to conservative christian
> fundamentalists. Many people thoughts are leaning to the left, despite they
> don't really acknowledge it. Perhaps, because those who disagree with
> leftist values are so keen on discrediting and pushing false information
> about the other side.
>
> BR,
> Jukk
>

Jukk can speak for me too.  I have directed several supposed conservatives
to politicalcompass.org where they have taken the little test only to find
that they are somewhat on the left, mainly because of social issues.​

​ I am still waiting for Rafa's data showing that leftists are as he
described, which is not at all what I believe in.  So I think Rafa is
making a huge generalization that he cannot support.  wfw​
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