Left is not an argument

[Moviefan-2]

I must be missing something. Unless you're Ann Coulter, I don't think people view descriptions such as "liberal" and "left" as insults, or as being derogatory in any way.

I don't even think "lefty" is derogatory. It's colloquial but harmless as far as I can see.

It doesn't offend me if someone refers to me being on the "right," or a "righty."

I yam what I yam.

 

[gargravarrh]

It must be relevant,...you initiated the topic.

I asked you a simple question,...you answered with "they seek to divide", I don't understand how my question to you, did that.

You either have an opinion on what " the left" means, or you don't, calling the terms "the left" and "the right",... "development" is a none answer.

You can't make statements about a term, if you don't know what it means, obviously you don't,... otherwise you would have stated what you think it means.

FAST

Bullshit, you know what I mean. You know that I know what I'm talking about, and many posts thus far have just served to prove my point. I call your shit out simply because what you want is simply irrelavent to the discussion at hand. Why does the definition of what is left matter here? When the topic is what people say about them?

Hence since your post is full of shit, I don't have to define what left is because it doesn't address the discussiona at hand.

Now for a little post.

http://www.mcall.com/news/nationworld/mc-gilberton-police-chief-tirade-0723-20130723,0,205560.story

This is old news, maybe a few days or weeks. This is what's happening south of the border, and whenever I see stuff like this I think about how much we're sliding toward the states. Since then, this douche has been suspended without pay for 30 days. He should have been fired.

I can't see any self-respecting Canadian looking at Kessler and seeing it as anything other than dysfunctional. Yet the dialogue in here totally reminds me of this kook.

 

[gargravarrh]

I was going to answer the OP's original question by saying that we may scream 'left' or 'leftist' when we see the bias in their opinion.

Fuck no, you scream out left or leftist when someone disagrees with you. You scream it out like someone giving you a prophylaxis. You adopt a doctirine of preemption.

 

[gargravarrh]

It is part of a problem of self-delusion. The left, likes to think of itself as progressive...ie bringing about positive change and tend to demonize those that they believe stand in the way of change. That is where their dislike for the police, I think, comes from.

I would suggest in reality that a massive entrenched bureaucracy is a bigger impediment to positive change than the police in a western democracy.

Yo, cop just shot someone in the street. If they did it wrong do you have to be left or right to dislike it?

 

[gargravarrh]

Labels arn't that useful. Some here would call me right, some left and some like to talk about my zionist upbringing (which is particularly funny because I don't think I met a jew until I went to university). Understanding someone's position on an issue is what really needs to be done, and once it is understood it can be discussed.

Generally I find most of Woody's positions to be absurdly left and almost a parody of real left-of-centre thought. Sometimes he is so bizarre in this opinions I think he is a plant to embarrass the "left."

We also fall prey to the American political warfare, wherein words like "liberal" or "socialist" or "racist" or "uneducated" or even begin to use terms like "christian" or "religious" as pejoratives, and the words become so twisted from their real meanings and so loaded with political and emotional baggage as to become useless.

While the political spectrum has a meaning, in many cases people resort to simple negative classifications as a lazy insulting shorthand, and that does not help the quality of any discussion or argument.

Agreed.

 

[yolosohobby]

And Oldjones....You're right. I AM concerned with costs...For the same reason that the father of a household thinks the kids are spoiled and have everything....and the kids think they are hard done by, and have nothing.

Except the kids in the household don't have the 'right' to vote for a larger allowance. The 'Kids' in Canada, do.....

Vantage point is everything.

is your 35% rate all-in including all of the various consumption taxes?

 

[blackrock13]

you'll never know

Really that's your response? No cajones, but we knew that a while back. It really doesn't take a spine to say so.

 

[K Douglas]

Interesting test, thanks for the link. I score like a slightly less libertarian Gandhi.

Also interesting to see how close together on the scale Barack Obama and Mitt Romney are. And Stephen Harper seems to be a cross between the two of them.

There's obviously a flaw in this because there is no way that Barack Obama or Julia Gillard are right wing.

 

[gargravarrh]

There's obviously a flaw in this because there is no way that Barack Obama or Julia Gillard are right wing.

There's obviously a flaw in this because there's no reason given for your reasoning.

 

[oldjones]

is your 35% rate all-in including all of the various consumption taxes?

If you read our exchange again, you'll see VIP and I weren't discussing an actual tax rate but the notional percentage of the year one must work to pay the Taxman. Cons and Libs federally and provincially are failing to cover operating expenses with Tax Freedom Day that comes well after the 35% mark. So that hoped-for-rate certainly isn't based on anything as solid as tax-facts; for all that it's an attractive wish.

To drop from 50-some percent to 35, is to reduce your cost by 15%, which is cutting almost a third from the income that no political party—l or r—has consistantly managed to stretch to cover current expenses.

If budgets were balanced, and everything was already peachy keen, one could dreamily hope some hero not yet on the scene could actually keep things going with a third the money it takes now. But things are crap already, because of decades of Ford-like revenue and cost-cutting that ignores what needs to be done daily, whether it's building a couple of kilometres of subway every year, or replacing a few kilometres of Mel's cheapo rusting pipes, or setting a bit aside to replace obsolete fighters and helicopters or figuring out how to keep teacher and school numbers aligned with population so half century old portables can be junked.

We won't be building a better Canada for less money than we're spending on the faltering jerry-built country we have now.

Any idea where the money to re-build Megantic is coming from? Or to deal with the expanding oils-sands mess?

 

[groggy]

Any idea where the money to re-build Megantic is coming from? Or to deal with the expanding oils-sands mess?

Super Rich Hide $21 Trillion Offshore, Study Says

http://www.forbes.com/sites/frederickallen/2012/07/23/super-rich-hide-21-trillion-offshore-study-says/

 

[yung_dood]

There's obviously a flaw in this because there is no way that Barack Obama or Julia Gillard are right wing.

Socially Obama is not right wing. He's definitely very Neo-conservative in his policy making though in the fact that he gives the republicans what they want most of the time.

 

[oldjones]

If it was useful to distinguish l from r another way might be by the tendency of the one to reflexively cut expenses and income without considering the problems it will cause or a plan to deal with them, and for the other to reflexively solve problems by committing resources without a plan for raising the money it will cost or the problems they'll face. Just preference for one important priority over another equally important one.

Sensible people, who try not to think in stereotypes, understand that both reflexes have a positive role to play in the overall function of the body politic, and that the healthy course is down the centre. Those who stupidly see only opponents beyond the narrow reach of their conditioned reflex thinking are like the body-builders who have taken so many steroids they can't bring their muscle-bound arms down or walk without their thighs chafing. It doesn't matter whether they wear the red shirts or the blue, they're trouble and never last long.

The smart guys at the gym take useful tips from each, but don't go overboard and just keep showing up. Unspectacular but they stay outta trouble and age better.

 

[VIPhunter]

I honestly do think that it's unreasonable to tax people much higher than a third of their income in total.

And while I'll agree there is much infrastructure to build and repair, let's look at the numbers, please.

The largest line items are always transfers to people, ie. social costs.....Infrastructure is small potatoes.

 

[yolosohobby]

I honestly do think that it's unreasonable to tax people much higher than a third of their income in total.

And while I'll agree there is much infrastructure to build and repair, let's look at the numbers, please.

The largest line items are always transfers to people, ie. social costs.....Infrastructure is small potatoes.

so abt 35% all-in including "consumption" taxes etc ?

 

[fuji]

There's obviously a flaw in this because there is no way that Barack Obama or Julia Gillard are right wing.

From a Canadian perspective they are.

The Democrats in the US are somewhat to the right of the Conservative Party of Canada.

CPOC supports state funded healthcare, supports the registration and licensing of handguns, and numerous other policies that are viewed as radically left wing in the US.

 

[VIPhunter]

so abt 35% all-in including "consumption" taxes etc ?

Yes. Is that so unimaginable?

 

[Moviefan-2]

Socially Obama is not right wing. He's definitely very Neo-conservative in his policy making though in the fact that he gives the republicans what they want most of the time.

Given the theme of this thread, I wonder if you are using the term "neoconservative" correctly?

Neoconservativism is a specific political philosophy.

However, people unfamiliar with the philosophy often assume it means ultra-conservatism. It is actually something quite different (eg., ultra-conservatives generally oppose government deficits; neoconservatives are OK with deficits).

Perhaps you think Obama is neoconservative in his policy-making although I don't see it. I can't imagine too many neoconservatives blaming an anti-Islam film for Benghazi.

 

[fuji]

I honestly do think that it's unreasonable to tax people much higher than a third of their income in total.

And while I'll agree there is much infrastructure to build and repair, let's look at the numbers, please.

The largest line items are always transfers to people, ie. social costs.....Infrastructure is small potatoes.

If only we could close the loopholes that allow the very wealthy to avoid paying a third of their income.

Transfer payments are the right structure.

 

[yolosohobby]

Yes. Is that so unimaginable?

I don't know, think it is HIGH though (maybe not if it buys me a decent pension) ... even though Im sure that i, and from what i read you, pay well north of 50% now.

What is the absolute $ amount Canadian governments, at all levels, should have to spend? how is it best calculated? as a %age of GNP? x/ person? what is a logical approach? the only i approach i see today is MORE is better.

What is our 2012 GNP? about 1.8 trillion? http://www.gfmag.com/gdp-data-country-reports/304-canada-gdp-country-report.html#axzz2apuaJBE6

What is a healthy benchmark for total Government Spending as a %age of that economy, Id say 20- 25%, so total govt spending across canada should be 360-450 billion?

This (incomplete) list http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_governments_in_Canada_by_annual_expenditures which is in excess of 600 million back in 2010/2011 shows at least a 33% for govt spending as a %age the size of economy. A big gap between the high end of my range $450 billion and this actual > than $600 billion.

This chart http://www.statcan.gc.ca/tables-tableaux/sum-som/l01/cst01/econ03-eng.htm breaks out compensation of employees at 923 billion, wages and salaries at 800 billion .... the rest of the table is something i'd have to study! but this starts to show the "revenues" that can be taxed

Anyhow I have a headache now. All Im trying to say is that to accept >50% all-in seems crazy to me. and i dont know if Id be satisfied at 35% ... although Id certainly be happier!

And i dont know what the persuasive quantitative argument needs to be. OldJones uses a lot of interesting analogies and sums it up w "building a better Canada" , reminds me of a Paul Martin slogan and its perfect to make you look like an arse if you oppose it bcuz that means you are for a worse Canada?

There is a context that works, that creates a dynamic economy. One that strikes the right balance between providing incentives for people to flourish, and some sort of equity of opportunity, with a safety for those less fortunate or in true need of some help.

Government itself can NEVER craft that balance. The institution of government no matter who the politician has one agenda - and that is to grow and retain power, and whatever they have to do to achieve that goal, they will do. We are left to live in tacit compliance without enough of a real say in the decisions taken on our behalf. Those who are connected to the machine, do well. The rest, serve the machine.

It should be the other way around. Govt should execute, really really well, what we the people want them to do and nothing more. And we should pay for that and no more. The rest we can take care of ourselves , and not cede them so much power.