A thought provoking world view necessitating introspection.

[Rogue AI]

Neo-marxist trash inspires no introspection. The bigger question should be which Eurotrash city will see more riots and looting, London, Berlin, or Paris? There is nothing of value to be found in contemporary European 'thought' the results have utterly abysmal. No surprise liberal loons look to them though. How sad.

 

[Dragonlady]

Here is an answer given by NYT columnist, Ezra Klein, to the question..........“Why are you a liberal and not a democratic socialist?”

I think it really depends what you mean by liberal and democratic socialist. Because those things mean different things in Europe, where there are deeper traditions of both.

And I think here the liberal democratic socialist and left dimensions overlap — but are different and are referred to as different by different people. I will say — let me try to do this in stages. I’m a liberal because I believe life is fundamentally unfair. I believe both life is fundamentally unfair, and I believe we deserve partial credit at best for how we do in it.

Not our fault that we were born to poorer parents. Not our fault we were born with dyslexia or without the iron will somebody else might have had. And also, on the other side of that, often not our fault that we were such hard workers, that our particular mix of intelligence and capacity was the right fit for the society we were in at the right time, and we had the resources or good luck to take advantage of it.

I am very well suited to a society that highly values abstract communication and not that well suited to a society that requires you to know where you’re going or to work a lot with your hands.

Opinion | What I’m Thinking at the End of 2024

Ezra Klein answers listener questions about fatherhood, ‘normalizing’ Trump and his outlook on 2025.

www.nytimes.com

I have two friends in particular who have been very successful in life, financially speaking. I've known one since 1st grade and the other since I was 17. One is the definition of a "self made man," having come from a very modest background who became a multi-millionaire. They are both fine people I'm proud to call my friends and both are Repubs (they didn't start out that way). One voted for trump this time around, the other wrote in Nikki Haley.

Perhaps not coincidently, they have the same blind spot. They attribute their success exclusively to hard work. To be sure they have worked hard. But they had unmistakable advantages as well. Both are white men, both grew up in MA where opportunities abounded, both came from stable families with solid role models, both are highly intelligent, both were born with a drive to succeed.

When I saw Michael Moore's, "Capitalism; A Love Story," I was struck by some of the people he interviewed living in European countries (I can't remember which ones). I found the way they spoke about their less fortunate, fellow citizens verged on familial. They displayed, to me, what I considered extraordinary generosity of spirit as someone who has lived his life in a very different culture. Which is not to say Americans are not generous in their own way. But it's a different mindset.

So.........do people who are less fortunate deserve the support of their fellow citizens as Klein implies? Is a difference of opinion on that subject the fundamental reason some of us are liberals and some are conservatives?

Pierre Burton wrote a book which has formed my worldview, called The Smug Minority. It was published in 1968, just as the the Civil Rights Act was passed in the USA:

"It is Pierre Berton’s thesis, documented by public statements made over the past generation, that a smug minority of business and political leaders has conspired to inhibit that freedom. The establishment, says Berton, has brainwashed the public into believing a series of myths which have no validity in a post-Puritan age. These myths include such old saws as “A woman’s place is in the home” . . . “Anybody can work his way through college” . . . “Satan finds more mischief still for idle hands to do” . . . “Too much security kills initiative” . . . “It’s your own fault you’re so poor."

Burton opined that a strong Society Safety Net was a necessity for a capitalist nation because not everyone in the world is able, either by intelligence, ability, or inclination, to compete in a capitalist society.

This point of view is not new.

 

[berg80]

Burton opined that a strong Society Safety Net was a necessity for a capitalist nation because not everyone in the world is able, either by intelligence, ability, or inclination, to compete in a capitalist society.

Some people have all three attributes but are held back by discrimination. Bolstering Klein's view.

 

[Dragonlady]

Some people have all three attributes but are held back by discrimination. Bolstering Klein's view.

I agree that racism is indeed a factor, but Burton was writing specifically about Canada, which doesn't have a history of racism and slavery, and hasn't codified racism in our Founding Documents.

The USA is, in many ways, far more racist today than at any point since the 1950's. The internet and mass media has given these slime a huge megaphone and permission to hate.