<div dir="ltr"><div class="gmail_default" style="font-family:comic sans ms,sans-serif;font-size:small;color:#0b5394"><br></div><div class="gmail_extra"><br><br><div class="gmail_quote">On Mon, Jun 2, 2014 at 5:54 AM, Jukka Liukkonen <span dir="ltr"><<a href="mailto:jukka.liukkonen@iki.fi" target="_blank">jukka.liukkonen@iki.fi</a>></span> wrote:<br>
<blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin:0 0 0 .8ex;border-left:1px #ccc solid;padding-left:1ex"><div dir="ltr">What is left about?<div><br></div><div>- 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.</div>
<div><br></div><div>- 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.</div>
<div><br></div><div>- 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. </div>
<div><br></div><div>- 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.</div>
<div><br></div><div>- 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.</div>
<div><br></div><div>- 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.</div>
<div><br></div><div>Left wing is about a whole lot more, but this is a short introduction for the subject.</div><div><br></div><div><br></div><div>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.</div>
<div class="gmail_extra"><br clear="all"><div>BR,<br>Jukk<br></div></div></div></blockquote><div><br><div class="gmail_default" style="font-family:comic sans ms,sans-serif;font-size:small;color:rgb(11,83,148);display:inline">
Jukk can speak for me too. I have directed several supposed conservatives to <a href="http://politicalcompass.org">politicalcompass.org</a> where they have taken the little test only to find that they are somewhat on the left, mainly because of social issues.</div>
<div class="gmail_default" style="font-family:comic sans ms,sans-serif;font-size:small;color:rgb(11,83,148);display:inline"> 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</div>
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