I am moving out of California to Montana. We already have our house in Montana and are almost ready to put our California house on the market. I have been searching for some property in Montana that I can use for hunting, shooting, or parking my travel trailer on for a few weeks of peaceful and quiet living.
I found two promising properties and then when I looked further into them, I found that they have a HOA that controls what you can and cannot do.
HOAs are similar to liberal government. They want to control what you can do with your privateproperty. They are run by people who know what is best for the common good and want to rule over the less enlightened.
The left is so sure they are more intelligent than others and know how everyone should live their lives. They just cannot stay out of other people's business. The welfare state is a way to exert control over those who have little and are too lazy to improve their life. They prefer to be taken care of so they do not have to make the hard decisions in life. They want to live the life of leisure they believe the rich are living. They do not comprehend that the rich became rich because they worked harder than most. They also provide a pathway for others to live better lives by creating job opportunities in pursuit of their goals.
I dislike political science with its too convoluted and complicated "ism" list and definitions when there is a clear binary spectrum where on the right-side extreme is complete anarchy, and the left side extreme is complete collectivist totalitarianism.
Personal preferences falls somewhere on that spectrum.
The right-side is oriented toward individual sovereignty. It better supports a male/fathering/patriarchal worldview. It is a producer-favoring worldview. It rewards merit, hard work, self-reliance, self-determination and persistence. It is in practice a "leave me the hell alone and let me live my own life." worldview.
The left side is oriented toward the common good. It is largely female/mothering/matriarchal. It is a looter and moocher favoring worldview.
The right side limits the government corruption attraction as there is less support for government rule. However, it forms more crooks and criminals that seek advantage in the private socioeconomic system. So, most more center-right-side libertarian types are good with strong law enforcement as a primary government power while cringing that this too is an attraction for growing totalitarian power.
The extreme right-side tends to discount government service and oversight that is required to help ensure their independence and freedom. For example, lacking government rules and enforcement to prevent American corporations from offshoring jobs... and lacking government enforcement of immigration laws, both contribute to a reduction in economic opportunity for people to support their family and live an independent good life.
The left side has the populist advantage in offering mothering... something that weak people remain attracted to even as adults. These are people that accept a loss of individual sovereignty to feel better cared for, less fearful and less challenged to make their own way in the competitive world. The claim is to seek more governance that ensures the common good, but most people more aligned with left-side ideology are considering their selfish want to be cared for by others, or to seek power in their advocacy to care for others.
The left side is a more dangerous corruption risk because there is no higher administrative power than government (other than God... which collectivists tend to want to eliminate for obvious reasons). When we have crooks in the private sector that fester from the lack of government oversight, at least we have the potential lever we can pull to add rules and enforcement as needed. When government grows corrupt enough, we are screwed.
There is a need for balance, and the tug-o-war is good and needed to help society maintain balance.
However, other than the risk of government corruption, there is a great cost to left-side ideology that can be explained by a decline in human capability and productiveness from the soft bigotry of low expectations, and the tendency for "from those that can to those that cannot", naturally corrupting to "from those that do, to those that don't".
Collectivism always runs out of other people's money.
And we have been pulled far too left of the spectrum since the end of WWII. FDR started the drift, and our elite political class just kept it rolling because it was the lazy and lucrative situation for them. And, on queue, we have been running out of other people's money.
Frank, as a political science major from way back when, I agree with much of what you say (but think that the isms are helpful for descriptive purposes). One thing to think about: The concept that left and right are linear, as it is usually the way it’s depicted and described, is not really accurate. I think the better way to look at it is a horseshoe where the “fascist” far right and “communist” far left are at the bottom of the upside down horseshoe (open at the bottom). This better matches the truth that the fascists and communists are very much close to each other.
As for libertarians, they too are not all the same. In a high twist world without lazy people, scammers, and thieves, libertarianism would be ideal. Alas, the facts of human nature require some government, rules and regulations (although on an extraordinarily smaller level than we have today).
I am moving out of California to Montana. We already have our house in Montana and are almost ready to put our California house on the market. I have been searching for some property in Montana that I can use for hunting, shooting, or parking my travel trailer on for a few weeks of peaceful and quiet living.
I found two promising properties and then when I looked further into them, I found that they have a HOA that controls what you can and cannot do.
HOAs are similar to liberal government. They want to control what you can do with your privateproperty. They are run by people who know what is best for the common good and want to rule over the less enlightened.
The left is so sure they are more intelligent than others and know how everyone should live their lives. They just cannot stay out of other people's business. The welfare state is a way to exert control over those who have little and are too lazy to improve their life. They prefer to be taken care of so they do not have to make the hard decisions in life. They want to live the life of leisure they believe the rich are living. They do not comprehend that the rich became rich because they worked harder than most. They also provide a pathway for others to live better lives by creating job opportunities in pursuit of their goals.
I dislike political science with its too convoluted and complicated "ism" list and definitions when there is a clear binary spectrum where on the right-side extreme is complete anarchy, and the left side extreme is complete collectivist totalitarianism.
Personal preferences falls somewhere on that spectrum.
The right-side is oriented toward individual sovereignty. It better supports a male/fathering/patriarchal worldview. It is a producer-favoring worldview. It rewards merit, hard work, self-reliance, self-determination and persistence. It is in practice a "leave me the hell alone and let me live my own life." worldview.
The left side is oriented toward the common good. It is largely female/mothering/matriarchal. It is a looter and moocher favoring worldview.
The right side limits the government corruption attraction as there is less support for government rule. However, it forms more crooks and criminals that seek advantage in the private socioeconomic system. So, most more center-right-side libertarian types are good with strong law enforcement as a primary government power while cringing that this too is an attraction for growing totalitarian power.
The extreme right-side tends to discount government service and oversight that is required to help ensure their independence and freedom. For example, lacking government rules and enforcement to prevent American corporations from offshoring jobs... and lacking government enforcement of immigration laws, both contribute to a reduction in economic opportunity for people to support their family and live an independent good life.
The left side has the populist advantage in offering mothering... something that weak people remain attracted to even as adults. These are people that accept a loss of individual sovereignty to feel better cared for, less fearful and less challenged to make their own way in the competitive world. The claim is to seek more governance that ensures the common good, but most people more aligned with left-side ideology are considering their selfish want to be cared for by others, or to seek power in their advocacy to care for others.
The left side is a more dangerous corruption risk because there is no higher administrative power than government (other than God... which collectivists tend to want to eliminate for obvious reasons). When we have crooks in the private sector that fester from the lack of government oversight, at least we have the potential lever we can pull to add rules and enforcement as needed. When government grows corrupt enough, we are screwed.
There is a need for balance, and the tug-o-war is good and needed to help society maintain balance.
However, other than the risk of government corruption, there is a great cost to left-side ideology that can be explained by a decline in human capability and productiveness from the soft bigotry of low expectations, and the tendency for "from those that can to those that cannot", naturally corrupting to "from those that do, to those that don't".
Collectivism always runs out of other people's money.
And we have been pulled far too left of the spectrum since the end of WWII. FDR started the drift, and our elite political class just kept it rolling because it was the lazy and lucrative situation for them. And, on queue, we have been running out of other people's money.
Frank, as a political science major from way back when, I agree with much of what you say (but think that the isms are helpful for descriptive purposes). One thing to think about: The concept that left and right are linear, as it is usually the way it’s depicted and described, is not really accurate. I think the better way to look at it is a horseshoe where the “fascist” far right and “communist” far left are at the bottom of the upside down horseshoe (open at the bottom). This better matches the truth that the fascists and communists are very much close to each other.
As for libertarians, they too are not all the same. In a high twist world without lazy people, scammers, and thieves, libertarianism would be ideal. Alas, the facts of human nature require some government, rules and regulations (although on an extraordinarily smaller level than we have today).
Good political ideology image: the horseshoe.