Why do you lean left?

[Kornula]

I used to be a republican. In highschool I was a loner autistic edgelord that thought I was smarter than everyone else and I fantasized about swat teams coming into the school and curbstomping every stupid drug user and goth kid. George Bush was in power and listened to the debates about the Iraq War to the best of my ability, and concluded that the mission was worth it. Terrorists needed to be hunted down and a free state needed to be built out of Iraq. I also somehow though that republicans were the party of big government, so I voted for Bush in 2004 because I felt that humanity needed to be saved from itself

As the years passed I saw how the wars Iraq in Afghanistan unfolded. Katrina was a multilayered disaster and when the economy crashed in 2008 it became impossible to defend Bush anymore. And it was only around that time that I realized that the democrats supported bigger government, but less foreign intervention.

I didn't know where to go. I became a Ron Paul fan for a few weeks, and then realized libertarianism is dumb. Over the years I came to support Obama more, if only because I saw more and more contradictions coming out of right-wing politicians and conservative pundits. I listened to Rush and Glenn Beck and Sean Hannity to at least get their viewpoints. But as time passed I kept noticing them making bad predictions, or contradicting themselves depending on who was president. I could only conclude that they were entertainers, not providing genuine views but calculated outrage bait tailed to be what they thought they wanted their listeners to hear.

I was indifferent to the 2016 election and never thought that Trump would be a literal fascist, just really incompetent. Which he was. And I mocked SJWs for years but I still lean democrat on economic issues.

Another big shift- when I was in highschool I thought illegal immigrants were coming to this country to leech of welfare, as if they qualified. And that they only did it because they were too lazy to fill out the paperwork for legal citizenship. I became more left-wing when it come to immigration when I became more informed on the realities of our immigration system, and the fact that illegal immigrants are statistically less likely to commit violent crimes.

Sorry, but President Trump was not a dictator. He is a blowhard..but not once did he remove a single line from the Bill of Rights or the Constitution. Please pull your head out of your ass

 

[JektheDumbass]

I consider myself a left-leaning libertarian. I feel that the government should only concern itself with national defense and keeping the strong from exploiting the small. Otherwise, let me smoke dope and go to gay weddings and gift the happy couple engraved His and His AR-15s.

 

[Tranimal Farm]

I'm a republican nationalist but I'm not american, in my country nationalist movements and republicanism have been historically left leaning.

 

[Jeff Boomhauer]

I lean to the left until the song tells me to lean to the right.

 

[Smug Chuckler]

I lean to the left because I want to fart quietly.

 

[Jack Haywood]

"We build your houses, your castles, we pave your roads and still you walk all over us."

Back when I was a lad playing Super Mario 64, that's what the Whomp King said to Mario before he was fought. Why am I even mentioning this, might you ask? That seems pretty autistic, you might say.

Because when I saw this question, that quote came to mind. The logical flaw within capitalism is that not only does it involve holding down the very people who, if their money wasn't being gobbled up by fees and hikes from privatised utility and transport companies would have more leeway financially, but also work day after day in the most mind-numbingly dull jobs that don't hold a lot of prestige but are the very roles that, if nobody was performing them, the ones at the top would have no high-rise office towers to strut about in behaving as if they truly earned their way in life despite the fact that they would never have been able to get to those high places without the immense inheritances and connections they typically possess. Demeaning anyone ending up on benefits as needing to get a job despite any inability to, or denying the reality of their poverty just for having a mobile phone or a huge TV or smoking cigarettes, as if they don't deserve even the slightest distraction from their miserable lives.

In other words, capitalism rewards those already rewarded well and punishes those already punished well in life, especially those the upper classes wouldn't be at the top without.

I'm not denying that life in the West is still quite easy for people compared to a lot of other places in the world, but even then it's only like that because great powers are usually at play to keep the poorer nations 'in their place' as well. It's no surprise that most Middle Eastern nations, the ones usually ranted about as being shitholes by people in Western countries, are typically much poorer, same with African countries. Also, their economies are more primary sector dominant while the West in general is more tertiary sector dominant.

And again, that's not to say that there are other legitimate factors at play such as a lot of them being dictatorships with human rights issues, as well as seriously flawed religious/cultural traditions. I'm not pretending everything is as simple as "anyone poor is being deliberately oppressed by THE RICH!!!" but I still believe it is a primary factor in what is wrong with the world.

Another thing to mention: I don't think anyone is evil simply for being right wing. Everything has to cast an opposing shadow in human society, and political orientation happens just as naturally as sexuality or personality traits, so it would be irrational to do so. I don't think my subjective opinions are objective facts, I just happen to feel strongly about this, obviously.

 

[Absurdist Laughter]

Sorry, but President Trump was not a dictator. He is a blowhard..but not once did he remove a single line from the Bill of Rights or the Constitution. Please pull your head out of your ass

Yeah, the sign of a dictator is the amount of Executive Orders according to President Biden...should we tell him?

 

[cuddle striker]

I'm pretty far left-leaning. I've just seen a lot of people who died hard, people who've lived hard and for no reason. Life is not fair, of course, and there's no changing it- but there's no need to be an asshole about it. If we can afford to help people (and we can), being a spiteful asshole is the only reason not to, and I don't abide with that.

In addition we are not living in the past. I would prefer progress into the future over conserving past traditions. The religious right especially seems determined to shape humanity into a throwback to the dark ages.

I've nothing against everyday religious people, though, I can see that there's a need for many people to have that sense of community and comfort from it. Nothing wrong with that. Trying to control others and force them into following the structure of a religious belief through governance is repellent to me though, the USA and the middle eastern nations have that in common and it's one of the reasons I lean left.

I'd say I'm Democratic socialist but I like my guns and hunting far too much to fully jump in, there.

I don't give a damn about trump, if you're still talking about him you're in a cult at this point. (whether it's positive or negative talk). He's not going to be in any position of power ever again, he's ancient and feeble-minded. In the 90s, he was sharp enough but that's long gone. He had the luck of the retarded on his side for a few years but it's over. Politicians fade from relevance, one day you'll realize that's all he was, another shitty politician.

 

[Raisin Boy]

I'm pretty far left-leaning. I've just seen a lot of people who died hard, people who've lived hard and for no reason. Life is not fair, of course, and there's no changing it- but there's no need to be an asshole about it. If we can afford to help people (and we can), being a spiteful asshole is the only reason not to, and I don't abide with that.

In addition we are not living in the past. I would prefer progress into the future over conserving past traditions. The religious right especially seems determined to shape humanity into a throwback to the dark ages.

I've nothing against everyday religious people, though, I can see that there's a need for many people to have that sense of community and comfort from it. Nothing wrong with that. Trying to control others and force them into following the structure of a religious belief through governance is repellent to me though, the USA and the middle eastern nations have that in common and it's one of the reasons I lean left.

I'd say I'm Democratic socialist but I like my guns and hunting far too much to fully jump in, there.

I don't give a damn about trump, if you're still talking about him you're in a cult at this point. (whether it's positive or negative talk). He's not going to be in any position of power ever again, he's ancient and feeble-minded. In the 90s, he was sharp enough but that's long gone. He had the luck of the retarded on his side for a few years but it's over. Politicians fade from relevance, one day you'll realize that's all he was, another shitty politician.

There is a very strong leftist precedent for gun ownership. Believe it or not, genuine leftists don't want to take your guns away. Even people like me only imagine a new paradigm for arming the general public. Gun control is liberal garbage, a Band-Aid solution that doesn't address the root cause of gun violence, the same as all liberal policy.

 

[cuddle striker]

There is a very strong leftist precedent for gun ownership. Believe it or not, genuine leftists don't want to take your guns away. Even people like me only imagine a new paradigm for arming the general public. Gun control is liberal garbage, a Band-Aid solution that doesn't address the root cause of gun violence, the same as all liberal policy.

well yes, but center-left does support gun control and all of that. it's why I'm left but not willing to peg myself to one of the center left parties. I'm just leaning left and the history of say, black panther gun activism, union battles, all of that, inform my stance.

you don't need to speak to me as if I was not a genuine leftist. there are other people reading along who are probably unaware that many of us on the left are gun people.

 

[Raisin Boy]

union battles

Oh shit, bet, we're on the same page then. Sorry, I spend a lot of time talking to libs, so I'm too used to repeating more or less those exact same words.

 

[Cyclonus]

Well I was going to say something about having one leg shorter than the other, but I'm not reading through ten pages to see if it's already been done. So I'll just say that a system where the richest 10 percent control 89 percent of the wealth is fucking bullshit. And I can understand right wingers concern about big government but I can't understand their blind faith in big buisness. Although big buisness would agree with me when it suits them, they're the first ones to go whining for government bailouts when things aren't going well for them. Privatise the gains and socialise the losses, that's their motto.

 

[Drain Todger]

I'm against mindless consumerism and sweatshops, I'm against globalism, I'm against Wall Street pissing our lives away and paying us a pittance to live, and I'm against supranational institutions, glowies, governments, alphabet agencies, and shady NGOs stripping our personal freedoms and privacy away at the behest of an unaccountable power elite. What am I?

If you ask a leftist today, I'm a fascist, but this was actually the Left twenty years ago.

 

[Slap47]

I made a few long posts on this thread going issue by issue on why I lean left, but its stuff like this as why I can't support them despite all that. No socialist or progressive party in the world supports free speech. Whether that be comrades who hate kulaks, bourgeois comrades who hate racism, or Harvard elites that want some kind of technocratic dystopia where people will own nothing, have no freedoms, and be happy with it.

There is a very strong leftist precedent for gun ownership. Believe it or not, genuine leftists don't want to take your guns away. Even people like me only imagine a new paradigm for arming the general public. Gun control is liberal garbage, a Band-Aid solution that doesn't address the root cause of gun violence, the same as all liberal policy.

“That rifle on the wall of the labourer's cottage or working class flat is the symbol of democracy. It is our job to see that it stays there.” - George Orwell

A few socialists will say "hell yeah, arm the people", but if you corner them on a discussion regarding gun control they'll conform to the generic liberal position. Most socialism is a larp in developed countries.

 

[Stormy Daniel's Lawyer]

I only lean left when I'm driving and I want to crop dust the passenger side of the car.

I remember when the left fought tooth and nail for privacy rights. Now they want the government to have access to our phones, email, texts, social media posts, medical records, etc..

I remember when the left used to stand up against tyranny, but now they have embraced it with open arms. The ACLU would fight for anyone, but now they have turned their backs on religious and conservative pleas for assistance.

I remember when the left fought for equal justice for all. Now its Social Justice, Environmental Justice, blah, blah, blah..

The New Left is the Old Far Right. Fascism stirred in a big old stew of shit and Marxism.

 

[Dial M for Misgender]

Just muscle memory. And abortion, I love abortion.

 

[Raisin Boy]

“That rifle on the wall of the labourer's cottage or working class flat is the symbol of democracy. It is our job to see that it stays there.” - George Orwell

A few socialists will say "hell yeah, arm the people", but if you corner them on a discussion regarding gun control they'll conform to the generic liberal position. Most socialism is a larp in developed countries.

Frustratingly, it's always the anarchists that are the biggest allies on this, but anarchists are rarely (if ever) to be taken seriously. Stupid anarchists, they ruined anarchy.

That being said, when you cut through the highly online, LARP'ing socialists and speak directly to unionized workers, you find that they're relatively firm on the second amendment. It depends on where you are. Sometimes you'll find a little wiggle room on gun control policy, often things like red flag laws. That's about it.

I remember when the left fought tooth and nail for privacy rights. Now they want the government to have access to our phones, email, texts, social media posts, medical records, etc..

I don't know which leftists aren't advocating for privacy rights. We still carry the torch for the NSA leaks, the PATRIOT act, and we despise the alphabet agencies. The progressive flank of leftism is sometimes retarded enough to compromise their (weak commitment to) beliefs and integrity to fuck over a reactionary, no matter the cost, though. I don't doubt what you say, but I think I'd like to understand what you're referring to.

I remember when the left used to stand up against tyranny, but now they have embraced it with open arms. The ACLU would fight for anyone, but now they have turned their backs on religious and conservative pleas for assistance.

You're making me feel old with these comments. Maybe I'm thinking back far enough that I'm remembering the ACLU for coming to the defense of conservatives when appropriate, but unless they've stopped doing that, I don't know that they're some kind of particularly leftist organization. We still talk about tyrants a lot though. Leftist spaces platform way more talk about foreign tyrants and abusive states than the mainstream media does. In my experience, anyway.

I remember when the left fought for equal justice for all. Now its Social Justice, Environmental Justice, blah, blah, blah..

I mean you got me there, even my own friends spend way too much time on social justice. I get called a "class reductionist" a lot these days. Environmental justice is a mediocre but not totally worthless talking point, though. It's fucked up when your tiny Pacific Island nation has like 50 cars but it's the first country that's going to get sunk off the map.

The New Left is the Old Far Right. Fascism stirred in a big old stew of shit and Marxism.

They're not fascist. The people I think you intend to describe are something far, far worse: liberal progressives. They're like fascists, but instead of killing you, they email your boss because you said the "n-slur" back in 2014.

 

[Maxxicus Callahan]

But seriously besides Soviet aesthetics, there needs to be some ambition to reach the stars and strive for the very best possible world in terms of human health, habitability of our planet for future generations and mutual cooperation amongst nations which is neither left nor right its more pro humanity and we all have our disagreements on how to get there naturally and how realistic that is is yet to be determined. But I'd rather space was a project for mankind not one reserved for rich elites like Musk and Bezos similar in the film Elysium. No billionaire needs to become a trillionaire, the richest can start paying their taxes and stop stashing their wealth in the Cayman Islands while the rest of us squabble for the crumbs and bones politicians throw us.

Edit: we should dream more on our lost futures and seek out new paths to get there, without the upheaval and bloodshed of the last century. We still inhabit the world of Francis Fukuyama's end of history in a way, the war of ideologies is over global capitalism is the predominant ruling ideology and it is easier to imagine the end of the world than it is to imagine the end of capitalism. It is really a time to start thinking of possibilities outside of market forces. If anyone had told you before the pandemic that Trump would nationalize production of masks under war time measures acts you would have been written off as some pie in the sky socialist but even him and Theresa May amongst others were enacting protocols for taking some action to mobilize society so certain actions can be taken outside of capitalism and indicators of GDP to solve major societal problems that won't lead to a gulag at the end of the road. Automation can free up more time for us to work on other problems and also give us leisure time for family life and yet rather than celebrate that fact we fear losing jobs. Our predecessors in the early twentieth century would have thought that technological innovation and overproduction by now would have granted us such an existence but it hasn't in fact we are working longer hours for lower pay generally speaking, why is that.

Take it from Jesse Ventura

 

[Jaimas]

I have always been an oldschool Dem. Classic left, not the crazy kind, able to find common cause with virtually anyone.

I grew up with a mom who was a real firebrand leftie who genuinely fought for causes she believed in - getting hit by water cannons during a civil rights protest when she was a teenager, exposing the Town Parks Department for flagrant breaches of the law well into her sixties, and pushing to keep art uncensored, even when her position wasn't popular. She used to tell me, all the time, that when you see an outrage mob starting in over "obscenity," usually a saucy book or art piece, you need to push back on it because no matter what side the outrage is coming from, "it will never stop at tits."

She was right, and throughout my developmental years, I got to see both sides do this shit, over and over and over. Throughout all of it, if there was anything about the whole thing that made me angry enough that I could longpost on it, it was the fact that there was no tangible difference between the parties at the level that mattered. Dubya gets in? Business as usual. Obama gets in with a supermajority in all three braches of government? That's some fine shitting your pants and doing nothing, Dems, way to go. Triangulation and failure was the watchword of the Democrats and I got to watch, over and over again, as the Dems not only failed to deliver on basically even the most zero-effort legislation on shit that should have been an up-or-down vote, but then danced a jig over how they intended to keep doing it.

Needless to say, I left in 2010 and I will never return, knowing what I do now.

 

[skjora]

Guess I'm left from an American perspective, though I count among the right where I'm at. I'm a nationalist, and I think that a sensible amount of collectivism strengthens the nation and its people to such an extent that it's worth the cost in individual liberty. Unity beats fragmentation, but of course too much collectivism (the amount of which varies with country and culture) leads to the latter the same way too little does.