What is it about the left that bothers people? And what's so appealing about the Center/Right?

[devilgrrl]

Since that's all we have to choose from in November. Center Right (Obama) and Far Right (McCain).

As far as I'm concerned there's absolutely NOTHING appealing about anything in the center or to the right of it. I can't think of one positive thing that side of the aisle has offered to humanity - especially the past 25+ years. Not one.

So what was it about the "New Deal" that so frightened everyone away?

You tell me.

:popcorn:

[BlooInBloo]

1. Combination of DAMN KIDS GET OFF MY LAWN!!!....

(b) fucking commie pinko dirtbags
(c) Accept jesus as your lord and savior
(d) damn ni**er-lovers

= why we're hated by the right.

[frogcycle]

2. can't answer, but can recommend

you read A. Huffington's "Right is Wrong" for reassurance that you are right. I mean left.

[anonymous171]

3. Left means change. Right means no change or regression.

Center/center-right means some change but no radical shifts in government.

:shrug:

[iamahaingttta]

4. We are a nation of "rugged individualists"...

... and anything that smacks of "socialism" scares the shit out of some people.

Our national mythology seems to include the notion that we are each born fully formed, and ready to take on the world. We like to "conquer" and "own" things, we don't need ANY help doing ANYTHING. Just the thought of having to share what you "earned by hard work" freaks out those rugged individualists, they seem to believe that anyone who asks for or needs any help of any kind is a pussy and a wimp.

Our national mythology also includes the notion that anyone can become filthy rich, if they "work" hard enough at it. Most people who get filthy rich do it the old-fashioned way, by inheriting it. Most of those who get filthy rich on their own tend to do it by being in the right place at the right time. It's not that they're any smarter or work any harder than anyone else, they just got lucky. I know a few of filthy rich people, and that's their story. The rest of the filthy rich get that way through exploitation. And those are the ones who promote the mythology. The suckers buy into that mythology because they don't want to be seen as pussies and wimps.

[KSCFAN]

5. I'm a libertarian so I'll shed some light.

I am voting Obama because of his views on shifting the foreign policy from war and empire to diplomacy. That overrides my other concerns. I will write what I believe and you can take away from it what you will.

You are a bit mistaken where you say they believe that anyone who asks or needs help is a wimp. I don't think that is true and I am certainly willing to help when it is needed. The problem is government seems to be unable to see the difference between:
1. Someone that has worked hard but currently needs help to get back on their feet.
2. Someone that is not mentally or physically able to care for themselves
3. Someone that games the system to live off of other peoples hard work.

Now if I give to a private charity and I see them giving too much money to #3 I can find another charity. It seems government has no mechanism to make the value judgments to differentiate between 1 through 3. That is the problem. By looking the other way on #3 you encourage more people that would otherwise work to pick #3.

As for your second comment. You couldn't be more wrong in my experience. I know many people where I work that make about the same amount of money I do. Some are frivolous with their money and they are the ones always complaining about not having enough. Then there are those that are thrifty like myself. I make over $100k a year but I drive an 11 year old Honda Civic. Why? Because it still runs and it is cheap. Plus I can take that extra $500/mo that I would spend on a nice new car and use it to help pay off my mortgage. I see plenty of people making about the same as me driving BMW 5 series. The problem I have is that in 30 years are they going to means test Social Security? If so they will look at my 401k and declare me rich while the guy that blew all of his cash all his life and has nothing will get more? If so then you are subsidizing bad behavior.

[devilgrrl]

7. Someone that games the system to live off of other peoples hard work.

You've just described every CEO in Corporate America.

[EFerrari]

10. So, basically, you want to control how other people spend their money.

And, fyi, the current system routinely denies disabled vets and citizens their benefits under the law, not the other way around.

[KSCFAN]

12. No. I want to control how I spend my own money.

You aren't going to find an argument with me that the system doesn't work. It doesn't help those that need it and there is plenty of fraud by those that don't need it.

[iamahaingttta]

20. Ah yes! The Libertarian...

... will shed some light! Please, enlighten us, oh great libertarian mind!

Sorry, pal, not buying it. "Libertarian" generally means "WAY over-thinking the simple things and then talking out your ass!"

For instance: "You are a bit mistaken where you say they believe that anyone who asks or needs help is a wimp."

No, I'm not mistaken at all, because I have had numerous whackos say pretty much those exact words to me. Don't tell me I'm mistaken. I'll tell you that you are talking out your ass!

"You couldn't be more wrong in my experience."

That is just about the dumbest thing I have ever read. It makes no sense. How could I be mistaken in your experience? It's MY experience!

Sheesh! Every frikkin' libertarian I've ever met has been a moron.

[MindPilot]

37. The old welfare vs work argument

Tell us, if collecting welfare is such a better deal than working, why aren't you doing it? Why do you get up and bust your ass every day, scrimp and save for retirement when--according to you--it would be far easier to just go down to the welfare office and get that no-strings-attached check?

What do you do for a living that pays you over $100k? It must be much easier than living off the government dole.

[uppityperson]

6. Calling yourself an "independent" means you (supposedly) think for yourself.

That's for the Center. Calling yourself for the Right means you Support Business and The Constitution as well as Love Your Country. (trademarked)

[EFerrari]

9. The center hasn't been at the center for forty years. n/t

[uppityperson]

11. I agree with that. And calling yourself a "thinking independent" doesn't make you one either.

Esp if your fall back position is to continue to support policies which harm you.

[pink-o]

8. I think there's also the snobbery....

...The "why should I care about ***those people*** when I'm better than that??

The right and the center encourage that snobbery, whereas the left adheres to the constitutional ideal of All are Created Equal. It doesn't take much to appeal to the baser instincts of insecure humans who need to either feel superior or else become easily scared that ***those people*** want something from them that will require sacrifice.

[KSCFAN]

14. Sacrifice?

Why should someone elses wants require my sacrifice?

[pink-o]

28. "Sacrifice" being a loaded term

I mean, sometimes you have to sacrifice a bit of privacy or convenience for your fellow human. So many people don't want to believe that we are connected, and they won't ***compromise** an inch for someone else who they feel is beneath them.

Are you one of those people? Would any sacrifice cause you to clutch your pearls and declare that you earned it, therefore no one else can have it?


What most people, in their infinite insecurity, don't understand is that giving up something doesn't lessen you as a person. And we can live without so much of the excess, if it means we all win in the long run.

[opihimoimoi]

13. Emotion...we were warned of leaning too heavy on Emotion..Art Koestler JANUS

The Magic Potion is still missing

[CANDO]

15. Repetition, repetition, repetition.

The left has been vilified for the past forty plus years by the corpo-media and the right wing hate radio minions. It's all people know. When you say left or liberal, people reflexively think socialist or marxist.

[Leopolds Ghost]

36. And what's wrong with Socialism?? The Pilgrims were socialist. Did YOU know that?

Plymoth colony was socialist. Extremely so.

Ity was Marx and his idiotic, pseudo-eschatological anti-religious materialism
that fucked up the left for most Americans.

(not to mention anyone who is sincerely spiritual, non-materialistic,
desirous of maintaining native cultural traditions, or anti-formation
of new meritocratic elites to replace the old ones)

Neoliberals, late-capitalist evangelical materialists,
prosperity theologians and Neocons are the new Marxists.

[seabeyond]

16. i can tell you the

attraction of center, but wouldnt do a single damn bet of good in understanding and communication cause no one would be willing to chat... would be reduced to name calling. can already see from the post here.

why ask a question if not really looking ot understand?

that is a question with a willingness to understand

[devilgrrl]

17. Okay, shoot.

At least I don't have worry about you insulting me.

The center to me is just the same old toe the line crap that I hate - I'm just like that.

[seabeyond]

19. "same old toe the line crap that I hate "... "Okay, shoot."

you are SO open to actually listen, not. lol lol. per your post, why bother, why even bother asking the question. you dont care. regardless, it is crap...

you really were not "asking" moderates or centralists or independents why?, cause as you say, it is the same ole crap you hate... you have already conveniently answered your own question without a single independent, moderate or centralist having to say a word

[devilgrrl]

22. sorry, I'm crampy

and feel pessimistic about the future. :shrug:

[seabeyond]

24. bah hahaha.... lol. inevitably

you always make me laugh. i should just remember and laugh right off the bat.

i am pretty pessi... mestic myself her lately. shruggin right there with you

[devilgrrl]

25. sometimes I just have to unleash my insane thoughs...

even so, I am very apprehensive about November, cramps or not.

These are some bad cramps too. oh my. :-(

[seabeyond]

27. i hear ya. 3

3 advil. not aleve or tylenol and not two. THREE advil and 45 minutes. for the next time anyway. a nurse told me, after years of suffering and not knowing. it works.

[Uncle Joe]

18. Because the far right own the corporate media and they get to tell the story

heroes, villains, victims or as the case usually is not tell the full story. The corporate media represents corporations that buy their advertising, those are their clients not the American People, we're just consumers or customers to be sold and they're selling us down the river. These are the same corporations that want a weak, indentured, dumbed down American People, beholden to corporate supremacy.

If you're poor and desperate for work, you take what you can get, at the pay you can get, you care little that CEO pay has gone from an average of 26 times the average worker's salary to 300 times in less than two decades. These are also the same CEOs and corporations that decide which networks to buy commercials from.

[LiberalPersona]

21. Nothing

There's nothing about it that would really bother most people.
It's simply the way that the right has falsely framed it through the media that scares people.

[newmajority]

23. Media brainwashing.

There are no true Liberal voices on TV fulltime. No not even Keith meets that criteria. Rachel Maddow might, but that's why they control her input as much as possible.

Liberal radio. Some are definitely more than others. And some who have claimed to be definitely were not. Frankly I'm happy Al Franken's off the air whether he is elected to the Senate or not, because his show was characterized as "Liberal" while he spewed DLC talking points and gave regular airtime to neocons from the "American Enterprise Institute". And not to debate them, like Hartmann does, but to agree with them. Lionel is as bad, if not worse. And the in-house "talent" on Sirius Left, Alex Bennett and Lynn Samuels..... Geezus don't even get me started on those useless turds.

Print media? The Nation. Mother Jones. Sometimes a decent article in Rolling Stone. anything else?? I can't think of anything off the top of my head.

So, unless you're online, or get your info from someone who is, you're terribly misinformed by default. And all that misinformation tells you that "Liberal" is a dirty word. :(

[Rex]

26. The left talks about facts and events that actually happen, however uncomfortable they may be.

The right talks bullshit 24/7 and ignores the truth as often as possible.

[Romulox]

29. The balance has shifted so far to the right that the "center" is almost fascist

There is no real debate in this country about whether massive over-consumption, worldwide militarism, globalism and its attendant environmental devastation, or a for-profit prison industry is advisable.

This is all taken as read, and the debate tends to revolve around pastors, and abortion, and gay marriage.

Denuded of any social or economic justice agenda, the debate of "Left" vs. "Right" is little more than culture-war schlock.

[Terry in Austin]

30. The left is scary to Americans

IMO, the basic premise of the left is "we're all in this together." It's the proposition that we should look after one another.

Hyper-individualism is so pervasive in our culture, it's such a part of the American mythos, that most people have a hard time not buying into it. For those who buy into it enough, anything vaguely lefty is a big threat: "Oh, shit, you mean I have to give a damn about somebody else!?"

[SergeyDovlatov]

31. socially liberal / fiscally conservative / anti-war -- is it center?

Talking with my friends at work their main contention is liberal economic program which pulls the country toward communism / socialism.

They don't mind, anti-war or social-liberalism, but economics is a deal breaker for them. (Of course, last 8 years showed that republicans are not any better on economics.

The trick is that republicans do use nice free-market and small government rhetoric and then do not follow through with any meaningful reform.

Probably libertarians would be most close to their views, but, with partisan machine scaring them about democrats bringing communism to the country and nationalizing industries forces them to vote lesser of two evils and voting republicans again and again and again.

[Leopolds Ghost]

33. In other words they are yuppie or wannabe yuppie elitist NEOLIBERALS

If they held the exact same views but also cared about civil liberties
(most neoliberals are against it and want mandated plastic jungle gyms
for their overprotected tots) they would be LIBERTARIANS

If they held the exact same views but were pro-foreign intervention
instead of anti-war, they would be NEOCONS

Useful distinction to educate people you know.

BTW, do you actually believe a "liberal economic program which
pulls the country toward communism / socialism"?

I thought the country was at war with communism when we had a liberal
economic program. Do your friends at work know that? I bet they are
ignorant.

Oh, and the US was at war with socialism here at home back in the
1870s-1910s when the socialist movement was huge. We shelled the
city of St. Louis when it got taken over by workers during the
Railroad Strike of 1876. Before anyone gave a shit about Karl Marx
and his atheist dialectical materialism, the MIDWEST was the heartland
of American socialism. Did your friends know that?

[Leopolds Ghost]

32. Of course, the Clintons are even further right and are flogging Rightwing Pseudo Populism everywhere

You know, the old "salt of the earth people hate the left, leftism
is elitism, entrepreneurs are salt of the earth, everyone wants to
be rich and the wanting is what's important, education is only
important if it advances your career, not some less deserving person" lie.

[kenny blankenship]

34. My television says the Left is bad.

[Leopolds Ghost]

35. Most of my TX / Midwestern relatives (including Yankee transplants) are virulently individualist

They believe the only good Christianity is that which stands for
individualism and materialism. Communalism (the faith of the
original Basptist and Puritans) is godless. The ones who are
non-religious are even more virulently individualistic and if
they read Ayn Rand they would accept it as old hat, and ask
what's so special about her as an author?

To a man/woman they are used to asking "do you have that here?"
in reference to their favorite restaurant, store, whatever
at home in TX/the Midwest. They believe businessmen are created
to rule and any restaurant that does not have multiple locations
probably has bad food.

[CK_John]

38. Many people are more comfortable with the devil they know than the unknown. Change

is the worst fear for human kind, it must be a gene thing.