[DrCaleb]

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I just want a clear understanding, that's all dude.

I understand. I know what my preferences are, but I haven't sat down and ever tried to define myself. But I'm just a computer geek, not a philosopher. The one who could better explain it to you would be Jared.

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Suggesting that liberals or whatever's difference here is some perverse compulsion to overspend and waste money is just not a clear ideology in my mind. As if liberals are actually fans of Liberal scandals like the Sponsership. That's like suggesting I'm glad the sparrows were wiped out in China, or that gays were prosecuted in Cuba.

I never suggested any such thing.

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It's a lack of nuance on the subject; liberals aren't campaigning on causing scandal and wasting money, no one is, that's not part of anyone's ideology, no matter how cynical I am! And as you point to only scandal as the difference between liberals and Red Tories, I again stress I don't believe that's a true difference in ideology. No ideology desires government waste. There's no Manifesto written where "let's fuck the country up and waste everyone's money" is their ideological crux. It's as much a goal of the Liberals, Conservatives, NDP as it is the "Red Tories". Scandal and failure is a human condition, and it can't simply be escaped with a vague non-ideology.

Liberals (the party) never campaigned as such, but that didn't mean the corruption wasn't systemic. Nor would any party, openly. You don't believe there is a true difference because of your compulsion to classify and categorize. If I agree with half the Conservative platform, and half the Liberal platform, and half the Libertarian platform, and half the Rhino platform; how can you consider me truly any of those things?

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If the ideology is supposed to just be "liberal-conservative without scandal"; it could just be shortened to "liberal-conservative", which, again, I think is well within the territory of simple modern day liberals. If that's pigeon holing... Well, yeah, I guess. It's politics man, and I like things clear. It's a silly tactic to refuse to show your cards in a game when everyone is expected to.

Again with the classification! I show my cards when we play a hand. I don't necessarily lay them all out every time we have a new thread. That would be boring, or annoying. "Yea, I like long walks on the beach, fiscal responsibility, classic cars . . ."

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DrCaleb DrCaleb:

I didn't say increased taxation, I said I see the need. As minimal as it needs to be to accomplish the greater good.

And Socialists hate the Monarchy because it sets a good moral example that they find hard to emulate.

We hate the monarchy because it's divine and unaccountable governance that we're just sorta supposed to revere, kinda like a CEO today.

A good moral example? Is that what the British Empire has set, as it plundered the world for spices and forced opium on the Chinese? A good moral example? For who?

Exactly. Yet when pressed to name one scandal involving Queen Elizabeth, all we ever get are half truths or innuendo from cenutries past. She deserves respect because she's worked hard to earn it. The 'unaccountable governance' thing doesn't wash, considering her actual influence in law is pretty minor.

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DrCaleb DrCaleb:

If you want to live in a free society, then you have to take the political system and economic system pretty much as you find them. If you want to create your own perfect society from the ground up, feel free to start a colony in an uninhabited part of the world, or Mars or something.

This is hardly a response. As if people haven't had and fought for political beliefs outside their current society's situation for millennia. As if society isn't constantly changing, with the most divergent pointed moments of history being at the hand of radical thought. Come on.

Society changes, in small increments. If you want the radical change you say you do, it's not going to happen in your great grandchildren's lives, if at all. The way to have it in your lifetime is to start a new society from scratch. Sorry, just trying to be realistic here.

[DrCaleb]

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EDIT: Listen man, I like you, you're one of my favourite posters here and we've very rarely argued, like maybe twice in the last decade, so please don't take all this personally. I feel NDP-Liberal types need to face arguments from The Left now and then. Can't let you feel too cozy.

Not taken personally. I enjoy a respectful discussion, as it helps me explore my own thoughts and opinions as well as learn from others. I've never taken you for anything besides inquisitive and friendly.

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[DrCaleb]

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I wouldn't call anyone here a philosopher, I certainly am not, I'm far less educated than probably every user here. Lord knows I'm not losing sleep reading Plato. I don't think you need a degree in political science or what-have-you to be sure of your stance. I will agree though that you are far more of a geek here than someone obsessing over political drama, a "normal" person as much as a guy on a mostly political forum can be, so I suppose I shouldn't be going at you too hard here.

I don't mind being challenged. I do the same when I see something that doesn't make sense to me. I'd rather ask than have it bug me until I find answers.

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But that's a risk, of course, with daring to say things like "I'm a socialist" or "I'm a fiscal conservative"; people of those persuasions who are relatively confident in their stance may see the general beliefs you've expressed and consider them to be in contradiction to the terms used that they consider their domain, and thus might feel they have some authority on challenging you over it. It took a long time before I really felt sure I could call myself a communist. And if someone is suggesting something I consider in contradiction to that, I don't care if they call themselves a communist, I'm going to argue with them.

I know I can call myself a Red Tory, because the attributes that generally define them apply to me. Not all of them mind you, but enough that I fall closer to that category than one of the others. Do I agree 100% with the definition? No. But I agree with it more than the others.

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All those things are honestly relatively close to each other (other than the Rhinos, who are simply just "correct", as an objective fact). "Socialist" is just not in that relative realm; the party Tommy Douglas joined openly stated their endgoal was to "eradicate capitalism", and you don't agree with that, correct? Some key points matter a lot in these ideologies. I'd argue fiscal economics and the promotion of the free market are core principles of a "conservative", without which you simply aren't a conservative. You could be against abortion and wish for an increase in religion in education, but if you don't support the free market and cutting back government spending, it doesn't strike me as "conservative". Same goes in my mind for "socialism". If you want healthcare and public education, that's great, but socialism is a socioeconomic system meant to end and replace capitalism.

And that's why I'm a Red Tory. Healthcare and a free market are not mutually exclusive, nor are government frugality and education. I don't support any religion in public education, if you want that go to a private religious school where your education will be worth nothing when you are finished. So I'm a liberal. I also don't think a free market in any way interferes with running government responsibly. So I'm a conservative. I also don't support any legislation that tells women what they can do with their bodies. So I'm a liberal. But I don't support Tommy Douglas's desire to eradicate capitalism. So, I'm a conservative. But I like the idea of a flat income tax rate. So, I'm a Libertarian.

See what happens when you try to pigeon hole me?

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You flashed a card when you said "socialist" in another and I'm only reacting because you flashed another card and said you're "conservative" here, and it's made me painfully curious to see the rest of the hand It's getting harder to stretch this analogy, but do you see what I mean?

I see what you mean. But I don't think any major party encompasses my view of politics. Some do, more than others, but not all. I can't enumerate them all, unless we start one of these kinds of threads. And I'm neutral enough to see when one party has good ideas and commend them, just the same as I am ready to cut them down on ideas I think are ridiculous. I still think you are holding to strict definitions of what it means to be a liberal or conservative.

I can want a strong public health care system, and still want the best value for my tax dollars that it can deliver. I can want a good public education system, and still want to cut out the cancer that poses as the government ministry of "Education". I'm simultaneously liberal and Conservative there. So am I more one than the other? And if I am, can you ignore that they both have philosophies than I abhor? I can't stand the divisiveness that crept into conservative politics, and I can't condone the wastefulness that Liberals tend to appreciate. So which am I?

Red Tory.

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I'll respond to that with the reality that socialist efforts in combating the Monarchy are pretty much commensurate with how powerful and consequential the Monarchy is; and it's not very much anymore. Hardly the top priority of any socialist platform today, noticeably. Bit of a burden on any fiscally-motivated government though, I'd contend... When she passes, I'm doubtful there'll be much interest in respect for the new divinity, and what remains of the Monarchy today might as well be buried with her.

I doubt it. Her grandson looks to be as much the decent person she is, and already has a great deal of respect from me.

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Whether it happens in my lifetime or doesn't happen at all, defeatism is hardly an inspiring call to arms to the status quo. "Realism" is fine and dandy, it's just convenient that it favours doing and fighting for nothing. Basically; why should things like the chance I'll see utopia have an effect on what my morals are?

I commend you for sticking to your morals, I'm just saying there is a way to get what you want. It's just a hard road to get there, short term.

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I was originally going to comment a thing I read recently about Lenin making a speech in Norway a few months before things kicked off in Russia where he apparently lamented that he'd never see revolution in his lifetime, but I've been unable to find any more information on that so it's possibly not true, or I'm not looking properly. Either way, I hope I'm never so bankrupt in my morality tat I let a simple thing like the near-zero chance at a communist uprising in Canada change my stance on what is right and wrong in my life.

Stick to your guns if you think it's right for you. But while I see a low chance of it happening, I do know of a few people who would shoot you in the face just for suggesting it, if it weren't illegal to do so. And their only regret would be they have to clean their gun sooner than scheduled. So even if you manage an armed uprising, I don't hold much hope for it.

[Thanos]

What's right and what's wrong never changes. Not for us, not for any who came before us, not for those who will follow us. Start the journey at "don't be an asshole" and work your way through the years with that as the main thing in life. All this other BS is completely secondary.

[Lemmy]

^

[DrCaleb]

Lemmy Lemmy:

DrCaleb DrCaleb:

I like the idea of a flat income tax rate. So, I'm a Libertarian.

Libertarians don't support taxing income at all. We don't prefer flat rates to progressive ones. We prefer to find tax revenues through user fees rather than taxing behaviours that should be encouraged, like working.

I was thinking more about the candidate for US president, Gary Johnson, was proposing as a 'flat tax' across the board.

Not 'Libertarian' in the general sense, but the party. Although, I do have quite a few 'no government intervention is better' views.

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[Lemmy]

#

[Thanos]

Fees though are kind of a crock because they grow incessantly to the point that they cost a customer more than even a moderate tax hike does. Anyone should look at their utility bills or mobility charges as proof. All of us are pretty much getting blatantly gouged by suppliers for infrastructure that was built and paid off years ago, and there's no way the regular maintenance of it costs as much as the fees generate in revenue. It's a scam for shareholder and executive reward, the way these things always seem to turn out with privatization of a public good.

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[DrCaleb]

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I'm not trying to pin you to a specific party, just an ideology. I actually consider "liberal" to be very encompassing and it at this point includes the entirety of the New Democrats and Greens. That damn Marxism means you're all fucking liberals to me, even most conservatives, up to the point where you're expressing attitudes like Bart's and Fiddle's.. I'm trying to be more refined for this conversation however, so I'm choosing to not consider everything that's basically "the government managing a capitalist state in the interests of preserving the ruling bourgeois class" to be liberal, allowing all these little deviation bits on what exactly is the best way to for a government to manage a capitalist state in the interests of preserving the ruling bourgeois class. So for the interests of this conversation, I'm pretending I don't consider socdems, greens, and socially-liberal conservatives to be different shades of liberal. Nuance and all that.

The scandals of the liberals and division of the conservatives mean almost nothing and have no real value in forming an ideology. You don't have to be either or, I wasn't challenging you to choose to be either "liberal" or "conservative", I was challenging you for using "socialist" which is simply not a thing in our Parliament today. The NDP abandoned the term under Layton if I recall correctly, and morally decades before that. The Liberals most certainly aren't socialist.

The anarchists in the streets are socialist. None of the jerkwads in the House of Commons are. And even using your example of Tommy Douglas and his old party of the CCF, I'd still contend that there's no socialists in the House of Commons.

Well, pinning me down with respect to socialism will still be like nailing an omelette to a wall.

I think that Government has a duty to provide the things that only it can through the economy of scale that benefit the citizens. Roads, a military, a court system. That sort of thing. And that applies to healthcare and social security too.

I think there are still a lot of 'socialists' in government, not just the pretend ones in the NDP. Even some among the CPC.

But you seem to be using 'socialist' as equivalent to 'communist', which I think is an oversimplification. 'Anarchist' is not 'socialist'. You cannot believe in non-government, then believe in government.

[DrCaleb]

Lemmy Lemmy:

DrCaleb DrCaleb:

I was thinking more about the candidate for US president, Gary Johnson, was proposing as a 'flat tax' across the board.

Not 'Libertarian' in the general sense, but the party. Although, I do have quite a few 'no government intervention is better' views.

Yeah, I know what you meant; I was mostly nitpicking.

. . .

And libertarians do not support political parties. No real libertarian would belong to one. Which means so-called Libertarian parties are populated with twits who don't even know what being a libertarian really means in the first place. Libertarian parties are more about whining and bitching than any definitive ideology.

Yea, and Gary Johnson was a little 'special'. What I really mean is the 'R' word we aren't allowed to use anymore because it's politically incorrect - but means 'you do something to prevent your own progress'.

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[BRAH]

DrCaleb DrCaleb:

BRAH BRAH:

DrCaleb DrCaleb:

I'm a modern guy. I won't judge.

Rachel has long sexy legs.... Then of course there's Shannon P.......

She is a pretty lady, same with Danielle Smith. But Ms. Phillips might be a little younger than I like.

I would hit all 3 before lunch.
If Kenney unites the two parties the NDP is done if he doesn't she might get a second term because to some voters it's safer to stick with what you know instead of a cluster fuck where you have no idea how it might turn out.