Two Opposing Points of View

Just another reflection on the obvious folks! "Right" and "Left" or "Conservative" and "Progressive." For all the knocking of these terms, I believe they still have some explanatory power. I think they do encompass specific ways of looking at the world. This being the case, I think it's safe to say that both the Right and the Left have competing theories about the existence of social programs and government economic policies.

We on the Left believe that economic elites dominate our political system and that most of the rewards are directed to them, and that policies are designed to reflect their interests generally. To the extent that we have social programs and income supports, it's as much a nod to the reality of a consumer based capitalist economy that proved distressingly unstable as it is to the demands of the majority in a pseudo-democracy and the compassion of our politicians.

Those on the Right, on the other hand, believe that our politicians bankrupted the economy based on the gigantic pressure exerted by the powerful lobby group of unemployed poor people, lazy mercenary immigrants, single mothers ("sluts" in their parlance), and their bleeding-heart advocates. Yes, that's right. It isn't powerful elites who run things, it's impoverished minorities. Weak people are powerful people in the topsey-turvey world of the right-wing shit-for-brains.

Of course, right-wingers would protest that that's not the whole story. Employment Insurance is enjoyed by the majority. The same for public health insurance. Those bank-busting expenses are provided for the majority by politicians hungry for votes. (Some on the right-wing will also insist that welfare spending and immigrant program spending is also done for votes, despite the reality that many poor people don't bother to vote and a significant number of people from the majority despise spending on both the poor and on immigrants.) Yep. Vote-hungry politicians pander to the lazy and the hypochondriacs with EI and public health insurance. Except the politicians (Liberal and Conservative) have denied the MAJORITY of EI applicants for decades and have used their premiums to fund tax-cuts for the rich and to pay off bond holders. And, with regards to public health insurance, it's just simply asinine to imagine that the bulk of spending there is on malingerers and crooked doctors rather than on things like cancer and heart attacks.

In other words, it's important to stop and reflect once in a while, on just how utterly stupid and deluded our ideological opponents are.