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(August 8, 2015 at 8:08 am)abaris Wrote: I switched from conservative to left about 25 years ago when the Iron Curtain fell and the Conservatives did no longer feel the need to keep up the nice nice facade. That's when they really started to fuck everyone over in order to help their millionaire buddies. And I'm not the one calling for a second helping.
I switched for the 1992 election also. The elder Bush rejecting the proposals of the Earth Summit in Rio was the trigger that made me consider abandoning the GOP. I had always been socially liberal but center-right on foreign policy and had been put off by weak Democrats (Carter, Mondale, Dukakis). With the cold war over and a strong Democratic candidate, it was time for a change.
Since then, the Repugs have morphed further and further into a religious right, science denying monstrosity not worthy of my consideration. I keep hoping that will change because I don't like being locked into one party.
Only two things are infinite, the universe and human stupidity, and I'm not sure about the former.
August 8, 2015 at 3:20 pm (This post was last modified: August 8, 2015 at 3:21 pm by Dystopia.)
(August 8, 2015 at 1:45 pm)Pyrrho Wrote: I have not had a significant change in political position in so long I do not remember what the last bit of changing was. I was raised to be religious, and as a consequence of such silly beliefs, I was quite conservative. When I became an atheist, I almost instantly changed to liberal. Over the years, I have gradually become ever further to the left. In fact, the last time I took one of those online quizzes that rates one for liberal and conservative, authoritarian or libertarian, on the graph, I was placed all the way to the left. Here is an article about the sort of thing I mean:
So, pretty much everyone else is conservative from my perspective. But I am well aware of the fact that I am not viewing matters from the center, and have a pretty good idea of where the center is, unlike some fringe people I have encountered (both at the far left and far right, as well as far authoritarian and far libertarian). In other words, I fully understand that I am at the far left, and do not pretend that my position is in the middle for comparison, unlike some idiots who only seem to be able to compare others to themselves rather than be able to realize how their own position skews such perspectives.
Back to the question of the opening post, my changing in recent decades has been so gradual and so slight that it is hardly noticeable from one year to the next, which makes it difficult to answer the question as asked.
I usually only consider someone far-left if they are (1) Anti-capitalist and support abolishing the market (2) Support abolishing private property and replacing it with personal property (3) Doesn't support liberalism
I come from a country with a more leftist stripe, so the only party labeled as far-left is the communist party.
I used to think progressive taxes are great, but then I realized they hit the middle class the most because rich people have many ways of income like capital and interest rates and therefore they can falsify income easily, so now I support a regular proportional tax.
Whoever fights monsters should see to it that in the process he does not become a monster. And if you gaze long enough into an abyss, the abyss will gaze back into you
(August 8, 2015 at 1:45 pm)Pyrrho Wrote: I have not had a significant change in political position in so long I do not remember what the last bit of changing was. I was raised to be religious, and as a consequence of such silly beliefs, I was quite conservative. When I became an atheist, I almost instantly changed to liberal. Over the years, I have gradually become ever further to the left. In fact, the last time I took one of those online quizzes that rates one for liberal and conservative, authoritarian or libertarian, on the graph, I was placed all the way to the left. Here is an article about the sort of thing I mean:
So, pretty much everyone else is conservative from my perspective. But I am well aware of the fact that I am not viewing matters from the center, and have a pretty good idea of where the center is, unlike some fringe people I have encountered (both at the far left and far right, as well as far authoritarian and far libertarian). In other words, I fully understand that I am at the far left, and do not pretend that my position is in the middle for comparison, unlike some idiots who only seem to be able to compare others to themselves rather than be able to realize how their own position skews such perspectives.
Back to the question of the opening post, my changing in recent decades has been so gradual and so slight that it is hardly noticeable from one year to the next, which makes it difficult to answer the question as asked.
I usually only consider someone far-left if they are (1) Anti-capitalist and support abolishing the market (2) Support abolishing private property and replacing it with personal property (3) Doesn't support liberalism
I come from a country with a more leftist stripe, so the only party labeled as far-left is the communist party.
I used to think progressive taxes are great, but then I realized they hit the middle class the most because rich people have many ways of income like capital and interest rates and therefore they can falsify income easily, so now I support a regular proportional tax.
The problem that you mention regarding progressive taxes is a matter of implementation. Rich people ought to be taxed on all income of all types the same as any other type. If you get money from investments versus money from some other source, it spends the same either way. So it should be taxed the same.
Also, punishments for falsifying taxes could be such that one simply takes all of their money (and other assets) due to their fraud. That would be a suitable punishment for someone cheating on their taxes.
The reason such things are not implemented in countries like the U.S. is that rich people have too much power and too much control of the government. The government needs to be strong enough to keep rich people in line, or they run roughshod over other people as well as over the government itself.
In my case, my present income is vastly higher than it was when I was young. I now pay a significantly higher percentage in taxes. When I was poor, I resented the taxes, because it significantly affected my quality of life. Now, I do not resent taxes, even though they are a higher percentage, because they do not harm me nearly so much. (I still resent how some of the tax money is spent, but that is a separate issue.) I like progressive taxes, and do not think the poor should be taxed even close to the same as middle class or rich people. Rich people should be paying a very high percentage relative to anyone else. If, for example, we consider someone like Bill Gates, even if, hypothetically (this is just as an example, not a specific recommendation), he paid 90% of his income in taxes, he could still live like a king. Someone middle class could not do that, and a poor person would starve at that rate.
"A wise man ... proportions his belief to the evidence."
— David Hume, An Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding, Section X, Part I.
I recognized that I was a moderate Democrat on the political spectrum after studying it in government class as a teen. In the years that have passed, my views have become more liberal. I'm relieved that no amount of church attendance in the past changed my core political beliefs, even as I witnessed few close family members political views shift dramatically as a result religious affiliation. Oddly enough, they cannot bring themselves to vote Republican, despite having many conservative values. They just don't vote now.
(August 8, 2015 at 6:02 pm)Thena323 Wrote: I recognized that I was a moderate Democrat on the political spectrum after studying it in government class as a teen. In the years that have passed, my views have become more liberal. I'm relieved that no amount of church attendance in the past changed my core political beliefs, even as I witnessed few close family members political views shift dramatically as a result religious affiliation. Oddly enough, they cannot bring themselves to vote Republican, despite having many conservative values. They just don't vote now.
Somehow, that makes me kind of like your family.
"A wise man ... proportions his belief to the evidence."
— David Hume, An Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding, Section X, Part I.
