Communist Russa, Nazi Germany, Communist North Korea, Communist Cuba, and, in the past, Communist China.
I have an interesting response. Leftists generally call for much higher taxes and more restrictions on trade and commerce. If you break the restrictions or don’t pay those taxes, you get locked up. Leftists are also fond of restricting “offense” speech and instituting hate crime laws.
All things considered, I wouldn’t say you’d be any less likely to go to jail under a DK regime than under a Bush regime. In either case, you can avoid jail by letting the government run all over you and your life. Considering the tyrannical economic laws a DK regime would put in place, I’d say you might actually have more opportunities under DK to get locked up, especially if you a business and aren’t fond of all the things DK is forcing you at gun-point to do.
Drug laws and immigration laws are often relaxed, especially in Europe. Churches used to be state-funded, now they aren’t. It might help if we define what “rightist statist policies” are.
Ah, now we’re getting to where we really disagree. You consider these things to be leftist. Yet don’t right-wing regimes have high government (military) spending, protectionism, and nationalized industries?
I fear we are about to enter a definition war; I’ll elaborate more at the end of my post.
First of all, nationalized industries, strict restrictions on trade and commerce, high taxes and government spending are certainly characteristics of leftist governments, regardless of whether they are of rightist governments, too. I don’t understand how your point would serve to prove that wrong.
It could be argued that the more statist a country becomes, the less useful the word “left” and “right” become in describing it, and I agree.
Now, about definition wars: I’ve often argued with leftists (I’m not calling JAlanKatz a leftist) over definitions. They will often try to redifine “capitalism”, “right-wing” in order to paint their supporters as evil.
After trying for so long to convince these people that their definitions were wrong, I realized that I was coming at it from the wrong angle. Here’s what I say, and it applies to what we’re talking about:
You can define “right-wing” however you want, and I really can’t stop you. However, just realize that whatever definition you use is not the definition that most right-wingers use. You can argue that “right-wing” means “killing women”, but that doesn’t mean that people or politicians who consider themselves “right-wing” want to kill women.
In the discussion we are currently having, you can argue that nationalizing industries is right-wing. I can’t stop you from doing that, but realize that the vast majority of rightists (the same people that we’re wondering whether to support or oppose) are opposed to nationalizing industries.
It’s best to look at individual people and ideas than it is to look at nebulous terms like “right-wing” and “left-wing”.
Ok, would John McCain oppose nationalizing some industries? Would Bush (who did nationalize airport security)? Would Limbaugh, who supported him in nationalizing airport security?
I think you misread what I wrote. I asked if Rush, not Bush, supported airport security nationalization.
Both Democrats and Republicans both supported it, unfortunately. Still, it’s much, much less of an “industry” than healthcare, and both leading Democrats have repeated that the ultimate goal is “single-payer” care. It’s much easier to privatize airport security than healthcare.
Look, I’m not defending the right-wing in this country; they can pull moves that the left-wing loves to pull, as you demonstrated. Generally, though, the damage is easier to undo, and generally, right-wing programs don’t generate perpetual voters like left-wing programs do do.
Haven’t gone through all the responses, so I don’t know if anyone’s mentioned this one yet; but strike-the-root.com is an excellent libertarian site, coming from a individualist-anarchist perspective.
Is it? Why is that? If they nationalized haircuts tomorrow, would that be harder or easier to fix than the nationalization of airport security? I just don’t see the comparison. In fact, airport security is part of a larger industry - security in general - which seems to be the hardest (politically) to privatize.
My response was that Rush is part of the cult of personality around Bush. To be fair, he has criticized the excesses of the TSA, but not the principle of nationalizing the industry.
You know, I think we’re talking at cross purposes. Unfortunately, I got confused and forgot what my purpose was somewhere along the line. I didn’t mean to talk about politicians, but about average people who self-identify one way or the other. A person who identifies as a McCain supporter, say, vs. a person who identifies as a Kucinich supporter. Yes, I also said that Kucinich seems like someone who could be brought to our side by a solid reading of Man, Economy, and State, while McCain couldn’t, but that’s an additional point.
I’m drawing largely off of my experience in New Hampshire speaking to people who support various candidates and their reasons for doing so. But also, I base my opinion off of Rothbard’s paper Left and Right - The Prospects for Liberty. I think Rothbard makes the points I’m struggling with far better than I do.
Airport security would be incomparably easier to privatize than healthcare for the following reasons:
The customer does not directly pay for airport security. The left couldn’t claim “the evil capitalists want to make the middle class pay for airport security”, as that argument wouldn’t really make sense.
Airport security employees work on other individuals’ private property. There wouldn’t be the extremely messy (and corruption-prone) task of selling property off to private investors.
In conjunction with the first point, airport security isn’t something that parents worry about being able to afford when their children need it. Therefore, in addition to playing the wealth-card, the left could play the fear-card, saying, “Do you really want to risk your children dying of pneumonia if you happen to lose your job? Every child deserves decent healthcare, regardless of their parents’ ability to pay.”
Basically, I have no faith that it will ever be possible to dismantle a nationalized healthcare system, while I can see airport security being privatized in a three or four week period. Once people realize that the airport screeners didn’t fail on 9/11, the last stumbling block will be overcome.
Privatizing the hair-cutting industry, as you mentioned, would be harder than privatizing airport securty, but again, incomparably easier than privatizing the healthcare industry. Parents can cut their own kids’ hair at home, so it’s not a life-or-death issue, or even really a money issue. The hardest part would be selling the barber-shops off in a fair way.
I realize and respect that your personal experience has been that it’s easier to convert leftists to capitalism than rightists to capitalism, but I guess I’ve had a different experience. I have found that rightists have similar core beliefs as capitalists, and even believe much of the same rhetoric. You just have to convince them that they’re being inconsistent. The leftists I’ve encountered won’t let go of their sickening belief that it’s their duty to “make a difference and correct social injustice”, and they aren’t concerned with trampling others’ rights in the process. They have no problem sacrificing a few individuals for the perceived good of the “community”.
Well, I suggested a compromise and I’ll suggest it again. You try to appeal to rightists, and I’ll try to appeal to leftists. Perhaps the difference has something to do with our own approaches, and personalities? I am a pacifist by nature, and able to present myself as highly interested in questions of social justice. You likely are more able to present yourself differently.
“Are we to trust the vagaries of the market, which caused the sub-prime mortgage collapse, to protect our very lives every time we step on a plane? Will you feel safe knowing that the person in charge of your security cares only about profits, not people?” I don’t want your answer, I know it is yes, and so is mine. My point is that this would be a very effective ad, considering the impact public schooling has had.
As a final note, I definitely realize that the statists would certainly be ready with an argument regarding privatizing airport security (they always are ready!). Still, for the reason I mentioned in my previous post, I think overcoming any airport security ads would be incomparably easier than overcoming any healthcare ads.
Then again, I’m not entirely sure that you were disagreeing with me.
