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What Are Some Things You Agree with Liberals On or Can At Least Kinda, Sorta See Their Point?
One of my axioms is that you never see a political sign reading “Both sides have some good points.” I’m the furthest thing from a leftist; frankly, the current Republican Party is too far left of plum for me. But even though I don’t often agree with liberals/Democrats/moderates, I can sometimes agree with their diagnosis, even if I disagree with their solution. Here are a few examples:
Police Reform. I have said before that I think police reform is an issue that should be done thoughtfully and intelligently, but that politicians are incapable of thoughtful, intelligent reforms. I have been proven right as every reform to date has simply been to stop catching criminals and letting the ones they previously caught out of prison. I am not in favor of defunding the police, but I think the structure of law enforcement is outdated (and this is also true of other institutions on our society). It really doesn’t make sense to have the same guys who chase murderers and drug dealers handle mental illness situations. And maybe separate training programs and units for distinct functions would not be a bad idea. Also, the police are way too militarized. I don’t see a need for any city of less than, maybe, half a million people to have a SWAT Team. Also, I think all police cars should be high-visibility vehicles like in Europe. 
And, yeah, there needs to be a lot more independent oversight of police departments. No-Knock raids should be illegal. Also, the cops who shot Daniel Shaver, Ryan Whitaker, and Ismail Lopez should be in prison.
The Military Budget Is Bloated. I did not always feel that way. What changed is seeing the military waste billions on overly complex, incredibly expensive, and ultimately ineffective or unnecessary weapons systems. Just to name a few, the F-35 fighter (“can’t climb, can’t turn, can’t run“), the Littoral Combat Ship, $5 Billion wasted on a “digital camouflage pattern” for Army uniforms that were less effective than the old pre-digital camouflage pattern. Or they spend billions on new, expensive, systems that they don’t need and that don’t work; like the “automatic” refueling system on the KC-46, or the magnetic launch system on the Ford-class carriers. All of America’s ridiculously complex and expensive weapons were defeated by a few thousand goat herders with AK-47s and Toyota HiLuxes. The military can get by with less costly, less complex weapons systems, and lose future wars at far lower cost to the taxpayer.
Wealthy People Should Pay More Taxes. Because, screw them, most of them vote for Democrats any way. Ideally, the Government would be cut back to levels that could be sustained at lower tax rates, but we all know that’s never going to happen. That being the case, lower-income quintiles should also pay more in taxes because everybody should have some skin in the game. Where I part company with liberals, is I really think the whole tax code should be thrown out in favor of a national sales tax and a flat tax.
There are probably a few other things. I would also agree about wealth inequality, but I have yet to see a policy solution that doesn’t lead to Venezuela. But I have very strong disagreements with them on their authoritarian policy proposals, Government-run health care, letting people get away with crimes and rioting, mass immigration and open borders and… oh, what’s that other thing we disagree on? Oh yeah, brainwashing children into the Alphabet People Sex Cult.
Published in General
Can I include the future left? I hope that sex robots and genetic engineering will be adopted by the future left. Genetic inequality is going to be a huge issue on the left.
Once we can better identify polygenic scores the Academic elites will be forced to admit that we aren’t all interchangeable widgets in the machinations of society. When that happens, the leftist impulse to help the little guy and promote equality will lead them to champion genetic engineering as a way to help out poor people.
OK with 1 of three. The military budget. Way to high and going to the wrong things. DEI bureacrats. More carriers and soldiers. And support them.
There are leftists and then there are leftist fools. When I listen to the former, I agree with their goals. Then, I listen to their strategy for getting there and I want to spit up.
The FBI is corrupt. Ruby Ridge and Waco angered me but it could be a few bad apples. I also listened to G. Gordon Liddy in the nineties and he loved them because of his time there.
Now with the FBI leading the way to kidnap a governor, becoming foot soldiers of the Democrats, etc. I’ve become disillusioned with them. Martyr Made talked about the Fed’s corruption during the Sixties in his podcast series on Jim Jones. The hippies’ complaints sounded a lot like my thoughts now. I suppose I was okay with the abuse when it wasn’t my side being attacked.
I wonder if Liddy would have stuck with supporting the FBI, as Andrew Mccarthy has, or would he see them as abusers.
Busch and Cheney are wicked people.
The military budget is tricky. The military has to be big enough that it dissuades rivals from starting a war, but not so big that it gets adventurous. There are other ways of having military capability besides just having a standing army. Having the ability to make lots of weapons quickly and having a fit and trained populace,… Nothing would be more expensive than to fall into Thucydides Trap.
Having lawful order is the primary purpose of government. Having cops write chickensh!t tickets to pay for MRAPs is bad policing. Cops should be well trained and city officials should take responsibility for cops that are jerks and poorly trained. The Minneapolis City Council never bothered to train their cops how to roll a handcuffed person onto their side to avoid breathing issues and the whole country got burned down and they City Council got no blame. People treat cops, like the just rode into town one day. Nope. Blame mayors for bad public servants.
Agree DG except the part about not having a standard Army. Have needed it for 250 years. And by and large they have done a great job. Sure would have preferred half a million Marines but I am on old Navy guy. And 185.o00 Marines may be just enough.
I agree that clean water and air and abundant greenery and wildlife are good things. I am glad that we have worked hard to clean up our waterways and that in general, there is far less litter and pollution than when I was growing up.
But I believe that these reductions were due to a wealthy, free and innovative society and not Earth Day celebrations.
I agree that reducing waste is desirable, not because I am saving the planet, but because I agree with my parents-children of the Great Depression- that waste is a sin. I try to reuse whenever possible because it is respectful of the gifts I have been given.
But the weirdest part GC is how these idiots have got all the forecasts wrong for over 50 years and people are still listening to this crap:
What a group. I will say that compared to the above idiots, and I am only an old lawyer, AOC is clearly the hottest. And maybe the smartest. Maybe not.
Yup, I don’t know why they seemed determined to believe in gloom and doom. And they fall for it every time. Must be in their nature.
Um, no.
Reform what, exactly? And how?
Police departments are local to the city. The police chief is either elected by the people in the city, or appointed by the mayor or city council, which was elected by the people in the city.
If you have any issues with the local police, then the local people have the opportunity to address it.
Right?
Corporations have too much power. (Of course they have this power primarily because of regulatory capture, but I can agree that some corporations have undue influence.)
No.
I have libertarian ideas.
Gee, how did that become a problem?
They don’t exist unless they are creating more non-public goods and central planning more. Going the other way is an admission that they are wrong. This makes everything worse and creates a whole bunch of extra ancillary dynamics until everything collapses.
We have no choice but to have universal coverage at this point to stop single payer. The GOP is too stupid to pull this off. I’m not going to get into a big argument about it right now.
These are the ancillary side effects. 20% of the left loves it.
Central planning with the tax code is 100% stupid. That is what we have been doing the whole time and it obviously doesn’t work.
There should be one deduction for procreating more W-2 slaves, and that’s it.
Running police departments is really hard. Be damn careful about tinkering with it.
Honest pollution control is an actual public good.
This is just my amateur opinion, but when you look at how successful Bernie Sanders has been and what those guys want, I think she could be president. It’s about political dynamics and political power.
And if they screw it up, the Minneapolis wealthy neighborhoods pay over $100 an hour for cops to patrol after work. Gated Community Socialism.
I love this discussion.
On the “I can sorta see their point” even though I vehemently disagree: As a general policy matter I sorta see why many people are afraid to make the decisions that having liberty requires or living with the consequences of those decisions, and therefore want a big government to tell them how to live their lives. As a small example, when I was employed I watched many fellow employees who had great trouble choosing a medical insurance plan, and wanted the company to just choose one for everyone. Same with choosing a 401(k) plan. So I sorta see why many people want a big all-intrusive government to run their lives so that they don’t have to make a bunch of decisions.
I believe there is some information suggesting that flatter tax rates and more free markets (i.e., less government regulation) correlate with less income inequality, or at least greater movement of people among income categories. Therefore I think policies specifically targeting income or wealth inequality are doomed.
I disagree that the wealthy (or high income) should pay more in taxes. I do agree with you that the lower income should pay more taxes than they currently do so they have “skin in the game” and reduce the tendency of people to want to vote benefits for themselves with the expectation that someone else will pay for them.
Personally, in the big picture I don’t fault them at all. The government interferes in too many things. I will take this back on further information, but I think the issue today is not liberty as much as it is more agency.
http://financialrepressionauthority.com/2017/07/26/the-roundtable-insight-george-bragues-on-how-the-financial-markets-are-influenced-by-politics/
You are on the wrong horse- the two things government must do you want to restrict 1st (law & order & national defense) but you neglect the real problem areas-almost everything else the government currently does. Like education (no federal role) , DEI programs, TG bathrooms, the Green Nude Eel, college loan programs (goodbye $1T!), massive & expanding transfer payments etc etc etc. At least the police & national defense is a core government function- we can debate how much for each, but the real problems are everywhere else. We need to stop really stupid things we shouldn’t be doing in the 1st place, the rest is window dressing by comparison.
And saying tax the rich more is the mother of all political lies- that always means tax anyone who makes more than me- it starts all the log rolling and is the 1st step down the slippery slope.
The lies and stupidity around this are a disaster. The GOP never put their foot down for transparency or stopping it. That and the activist fed start the ball rolling the wrong way and then everybody complains about RINOs, socialism, and populism until the bond market collapses.
The Dems will defund the police & military and raise taxes on the rich and then use all the “savings” to increase transfer payments & buy votes (but I repeat myself). At least with spending on law enforcement & national defense there is a chance the nation will actually benefit.
I would couch my opinion more in what conservatives are/were wrong about than what liberals (do they even exist?) were/are right about.
Corporations were never great, always a trade-off, but useful economically. While I am a free-market capitalist myself, I’ve changed my position on multi-national corporations over the last 10 years when they became focused on influencing the government. Yes, they always did this, but at some point it became a threat and we are now living in an ever growing fascist-adjacent environment.
The drug war was devastating to civil liberties.
The war in Iraq was a mistake and so was the Vietnam war.
Republicans are ill-informed generally on the superior technology of electric cars and their ultimate viability. They are so fixated on the environmental claims made by lefties and the virtue-signaling they can’t see the massive upside to the new technology. I disagree with the vigorous phase-out of ICE vehicles however. Even Musk himself finds it too much.
Many conservatives are over-focused on the morality of their leaders as a litmus test for getting good representation. The game-theory of this dynamic gives us pathetic losers like Romney ( who the left still finds ways to vilify). All this type of candidate does is pat Republicans on the head with platitudes and promises and either loses or becomes a serial compromiser-in-chief. Of course all we have to do is watch how they reacted to Trump.
Conservatives are generally quite wrong about civil liberties and ‘law and order’. The police have been given way too much leeway and most police forces are at least somewhat corrupt and lawless themselves. The left were off-base on charges of racism on police (yes there’s some) but it’s more that there’s a very toxic us versus them element in almost every force.
On the FBI, CIA etc. the leftists were absolutely right.
The Patriot Act was/is a travesty.
Hard drugs should have been sold at cost by the government 40 years ago. Look at the Cartels.
A big Part of the problem with the FBI is that it has two roles that should be separated- national criminal (organized crime& interstate crime) with domestic counter intelligence. The UK explicitly separates those roles & so should we. Much of the malfeasance with Russiagate was because of those overlapping roles people in the FBI could manipulate the system to advance their agenda. We need 3 agencies- foreign intelligence, domestic counter intelligence and national criminal. A Combination of any 2 makes it too powerful and too easy to exploit the overlapping roles like Comey etc did.