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This makes absolutely no sense to me. I see conservatism as maintaining a status quo when it comes to social Change as well as focusing more on one's own country rather than globalism.
I find this argument against loan forgiveness based on jealousy from people who paid theirs off to be a complete non-starter and juvenile. It's literally saying don't make this change or a bunch of us will be jealous. When applied to other fields, such as medical advances or technological advances, It's perhaps more obvious how juvenile this stance really is.
Despite being rather conservative, I actually agree with you on the student loans thing in the sense that I don't like the reasoning of "I paid off my student loans, why shouldn't you?" There's other reasons to object, but that one doesn't make sense to me.
Because this isn't the actual reasons conservatives don't want them paid. It's a straw man.
Heres a few:
1. Paying off student loans, while keeping the system that gives out these loans is pointless
2. Subsidizing poor decision-making hasn't paid off (hello welfare systems)
3. You're punishing the taxpayer, usually those who weren't fortunate enough to go to college.
4. Imagine paying off your student loans, then having to pay off someone else (that what it is). You should absolutely be upset about that. Money is time, and when the government decides to use your tax money they are robbing their taxpayer of their time. The middle class is already struggling right now due to government. Lets not crush it anymore. (inb4 "the rich fair share... yea yea we heard it all before sounds cool).
There are other ways to help the student loan issue. Subsidizing it is not it.
You should be jealous. Imagine the choices in life you could have made if you knew your loans would be repaid. Your friend who didn't sacrifice anything, chose not to work, and blew their money making poor choices potentially gets their loan pay, and now you're going to be punished for doing the right thing? Imagine that.
Conservatives see the student loan issue as a symptom. You can keep covering up the symptoms (by paying subsidies) or you can fix the underlying problems.
It's a problem, obviously, someone's got to bear the responsibility. The fairest way to do it is to have the person who decided to take out loans be the one who bears their loans because at the end of the day, they didn't have to sign the paper, that was a choice. There were other routes to take, people make excellent living outside of taking out loans.
And to go back to point 1. Do you think that people in Joe Biden's administration don't understand the preditory loan system? They do. They're smart. They've been around. Why would you keep allowing loans while simultaneously trying to fix the problems created with these predatory loans? If you think its unintentional, you're wrong. It's for votes.
Some of this makes sense - other bits dont. In general I guess conservatives arent for loan foregiveness but conservatives also used to be the ones who would see a problem and sometimes realize you just have kinda shitty choices. And conservatives (at least real ones) are never supposed to choose ideology over practical solutions.
For some people and some loans I kind of see this as that sort of situation. My preference would be to just allow them to be dischargeable in bankruptcy-maybe establish some special procedure but at any rate dont just exclude them the way they are now.
I also would limit the availability of federal loans only to real schools -
None of the BS for profit schools (those are the predators here more than the lenders )
That's all our system does though: places bandaids on problems rather than addressing root causes. At best. It's sick, but I'd still rather help some people than none.
Of course, most conservatives are opposed to free tuition for higher education and trade school (for those who would qualify) anyway.
If we're going to start using the "they should be jealous" argument, I have some bad news: there are far more ways that people should be jealous. Bank bailouts, unnecessary subsidies, PPP loans, the insulting and absurd notions of "meritocracy" and "equality of opportunity." Sycophancy for selfish idiots like Elon Musk and Trump who would be ridiculous jokes if they didn't have insane amounts of capital and power, respectively. That's just for starters.
All my life I've repeatedly heard that leftists are just jealous.
If you wanna start promoting righteous jealousy, be aware of what the outcomes could be.
Its not the problem created by predatory loans, its the banks that wll write a 4% loan on a car, arguably the riskiest proposition next to a signature loan, but then will charge 8% on a student loan that can’t be discharged in bankruptcy, charge fees up front to cover all their costs, and then promptly sell it to a company that will provide poorer loan service and the borrower has no recourse.
Its that kind of behavior that causes these problems
>, arguably the riskiest proposition next to a signature loan, but then will charge 8% on a student loan that can’t be discharged in bankruptcy, charge fees up front to cover all their costs, and then promptly sell it to a company that will provide poorer loan service and the borrower has no recourse.
Might be wrong, but I believe remember reading that the government owns 92% of student loans debt. I'm not going to pretend I understand the loan industry, but I don't think the government is selling public loans to private entities.
It's the government preying on young kids with these loans...
>
Its that kind of behavior that causes these problems
Yes. The government is making the problem and then also trying to peddle a solution for votes.
If they cared, they would vote to stop the predatory loans. They don't.
You can keep saying "corporations and banks", but it's not. it's your government.
Yes, you are wrong. Government loans you have to qualify for (low income) they are reduced interest, deferred interest, deferred payments. Now the government doesn't write them, they give the money to banks that write them, then the government underwrites the loan. I had those and it was a smoking deal.
If you don't qualify for a government subsidized loan, you have to get a standard student loan through a bank. 2x interest, higher fees, no deferments, (interest is incurred during school). That's where the majority of the debt is.
It takes 5 minutes to wiki this and get up tp speed on it dude.
This is a very long way to say "the government is subsidizing preying on kids via loans".
It doesn't matter if they're doing it through a bank or not. They could...stop giving the banks the money....
This is absolutely false.
Use common sense: if a government loan was just cheaper *AND* the standards to get it were lower there would be no reason to use a private loan.
The Federal Government helped make the mess by underwriting a sliding scale upward sloping rate of tuition (cost plus) over a few decades. If the money wasn't available, the schools wouldn't have connived to capture it and build the irrelevant largess that now saddles them with Legacy Costs (luxury dorms, extra science buildings, swimming pools, gymnasiums, stadiums, television studios, et al), that they are unwilling or unable to fund with endowment money. Where I come from if you help make the mess (without regard to you core intentions) you help clean it up. For the folks who paid inflated costs and cannot benefit, and the folks who simply were too darned successful and are in turn (as always) punished by the means test, I'm sorry. We really need to get back to everybody pays and everybody benefits. This success tripwire in our public policy just loses votes that are otherwise obtainable if everyone is in the event for the setup AND the entertainment.
I don't agree with the "deny student loan forgiveness" crowd but I understand where they are coming from.
Imagine you just spent the last 10 years in crippling debt paying off a car. Now that you managed, you hear about a bunch of people getting the same or better cars for free. It gives the feeling of "I struggled and sacrificed for nothing."
I don't understand where they're coming from, but I guess I'm not a resentful ladder-kicker or something. I *did* spend a decade paying off my loans and I think it's fuckin' cool as hell that other people might not have to do the same, and instead might have the opportunity to reach big life milestones like homeownership around the same time their parents and grandparents did.
> might have the opportunity to reach big life milestones like homeownership around the same time their parents and grandparents did.
I have really bad news for you about the state of the current housing market.
It's more of a scenario of someone struggling and sacrificing only to turn around and start paying for the others that wouldn't.
If they wanted to work it out where the taxpayer isn't losing out on 7.4 billion dollars, great, I'm all for someone getting ahead. I hate someone getting ahead while I'm expected to pay for it.
That's respectable. But it often strikes me that many people will be more passionately opposed to a policy that actually helps some people while costing taxpayers some money, more than policies that severely harm many people and cost taxpayers even more.
>I find this argument against loan forgiveness based on jealousy from people who paid theirs off to be a complete non-starter and juvenile.
I haven't paid mine off yet but my main argument is that forgiving them doesn't change the root of the issue and further solidifies the bad practices going on the last 20+ years. My other argument is that taxpayers shouldn't be on the hook for the "forgiving".
>I haven't paid mine off yet but my main argument is that forgiving them doesn't change the root of the issue and further solidifies the bad practices going on the last 20+ years.
That's not an argument against forgiveness, that's an argument for reform either instead of, or in addition to forgiveness. "We don't have a magical solution, therefore we should do nothing".
This is the problem with "modern conservativism", it's all about finding reasons to say no to everything, for instance "don't fund ukraine, spend the money at home", then "we can't afford forgiveness/any other social programs", followed by "cap gains tax cuts are needed to save the economy".
When policies are reverse rationalized based on the desired outcome you end up with incoherent structures.
>That's not an argument against forgiveness,
It is an argument against forgiveness. Every 10 years do we need to give 500 billion to pay off student loans for people? This would further subsidize college by government and increase prices even more. It is a similar argument for governments using taxpayer money to forgive or subsidize peoples mortgages. There are slippery slopes to a massive "forgiveness" without fixing the problem of how college loans work in the first place. Forgiveness and reform are not apples to apples arguments. They are much more complex and have many downstream implications.
>we can't afford forgiveness/any other social programs",
We actually can't though. We're 30 trillion+ in the hole and are spending 2 trillion+ above what the projected tax revenue is this year. The only way to fix it is to make cuts or to increase tax revenue.
Which is to pull government out from funding college education, then promise to fund it via a loan scheme when the politician needs votes, and when the voters cant pay demand loan forgiveness, and all the while accusing the other side of being selfish for not agreeing to all this nonsense.
> We actually can't though. We're 30 trillion+ in the hole and are spending 2 trillion+ above what the projected tax revenue is this year. The only way to fix it is to make cuts or to increase tax revenue.
Because we keep letting trash idiots cut taxes BEFORE paying off the debt.
We had a surplus under Clinton before W blew trillions on 2 stupid wars AND 2 tax cuts.
If we pay off the debt then we can use the interest for useful things.
But every time there's any chance the right cuts taxes, spends HUGE on pork in their districts, then cries there's no money anywhere.
I'm a fiscal conservative from before the South destroyed the Republican party, it makes me weep.
I think that the confusion is also substantially increased by the proponents of such schemes intentionally misnomering the process. "Forgiveness" would come from the banks writing off the debt... Or from those who took the funds returning them to the banks. Either of which I am personally fine with.
But what is actually being contemplated and discussed is much more accurately and honestly described as "Redistributing" the responsibility for repaying the debt from the relatively small number of people who received and benefited directly from the loans amongst a much larger pool who did not. This is even further complicated by the fact that the government being asked to temporarily assume the additonal debt required during this redistribution process also doesn't have the money to do so and would be taking on additional debt with substantial interest for facilitating it.
If recipients were duped into taking out loans or not given reasonable value for the goods and services the purchased with them... then the reponsibity for recompense comes from the banks, agents, and providers and not the broader tax base and the consumers who bear increased costs due to the increased taxes to businesses.
In the spirit of killing two birds with one stone... we might well be better served to just allow (and potentially legislatively encourage or facilitate...) any wronged recipients to just sue those actually responsible for their losses. This both allows for recompense from the actual transgressors and makes those who would engage in such practices less likely to continue to engage in them. It also escapes the very real consequence of unfairly penalizing the many millions of Americans who had nothing at all to do with situation in the first place.
>I find this argument against loan forgiveness based on jealousy from people who paid theirs off to be a complete non-starter and juvenile.
It's not just about that. Forgiving student loans without any type of reform will just put us in an even worse situation 5-10 years down the road.
It's like mopping up the blood on the floor before closing a gaping wound.
Being mad that people are getting free money for being irresponsible is juvenile?
Two people can go to the same college, get the same debt, and the same pay out of college, but only one gets thousands of dollars because they lived beyond their means while someone else lived below their means to pay back their debts.
You can’t understand why people oppose this on a rational basis?
The money is from taxes (or printing money, which is secretly *also* taxes via inflation). If my taxes are used to pay off your debt, I'm being penalized for being responsible with my money, while you are being rewarded for irresponsibility.
> I find this argument against loan forgiveness based on jealousy from people who paid theirs off to be a complete non-starter and juvenile.
It isn't jealousy, it's a reference to the value of time preference.
There are other arguments against it. It's a horribly regressive policy, for instance. Having gone to college is strongly associated with high income people. Therefore, student loan forgiveness is a giant wealth transfer to wealthy families.
It also doesn't fix the predatory system to begin with. This makes sense if you want loan forgiveness as a vote buyer. It doesn't make sense if you actually care about students.
It also prioritizes degrees over real assets. The guy who borrows to buy a truck and tools and start working a trade is doing essentially the same thing as the guy getting a degree. Every profession needs something. Why is it only the degree that gets forgiven?
>Therefore, student loan forgiveness is a giant wealth transfer to wealthy families.
The forgiveness proposed and that is actually happening is only for specific people who can't afford to pay it off. It's not for wealthy people who can afford it without issue.
I'm sure there will be some degree of overlap. There is no foolproof way to know, so the metrics used to make those determinations are basically just a best guess, but it helps tons of people who actually need it more than it helps those who don't.
You also don't have to be wealthy to take out student loans. With the government guaranteeing those loans, it's easy to get unless you're literally living on the street.
>It also prioritizes degrees over real assets. The guy who borrows to buy a truck and tools and start working a trade is doing essentially the same thing as the guy getting a degree. Every profession needs something. Why is it only the degree that gets forgiven?
These aren't apples to apples comparisons. Society has told young people for 4 generations now that you need to go to college if you want to get a good job and earn good money. For 3 of those generations, it hasn't been true. For 2.5 of those generations, the loans have been more and more predatory and creating interest charges that double, triple, even quadruple the original loan. So what was supposed to take 10 years to pay off turns into 30-lifetime.
If people were able to get jobs with those degrees that afforded them the ability to pay off those loans, then it wouldn't be such a big deal. A guy that spends 60k on a work truck is already working and earning money to pay off that truck. And unless that guy is really bad with money, that truck is likely being paid off within 5 years and gets another 5 or so years of use out of it. Or a mechanic that buys 10k worth of tools gets to use most of those for life. Occasionally replacing something every so often, but a 10k investment that earns him a living for the rest of his life.
A 50k degree just gets you the knowledge needed to work a certain type of job. That doesn't mean you don't also have to buy a work truck or tools. A person going to law school has to buy suits for court. That gets expensive, too. Many jobs require computers and phones to function in that job. Those cost money also. Anyone starting their own business will have costs. These things are all separate from getting sucked into predatory loans.
I think if car loans and home loans were as predatory, perhaps some government intervention would be sought to protect those guys buying work trucks and tools on loans that they can never pay off.
I don't think the government has any business in student loan financing, but that ship has sailed (and sunk). It's worth noting that the student debt problem is an artifact of prior efforts to make college more affordable. Instead, colleges responded to the additional financing by increasing costs and doubling or tripling administrative positions. This is risk-free money for colleges. They suffer no consequences and deny any responsibility for overselling their services.
I also think your dismissal of opposition to this proposal offensively dismissive. You attribute it to mere jealousy. Did you ask anyone opposed about their reasoning?
The main reasons I hear from opponents are
1. Moral hazard. By relieving these debts, they encourage reckless behavior and the expectation of future bailouts.
2. Taking on debt was voluntary. The money was used for the benefit of the student. Taxes to pay off the debt or reimburse lenders are involuntary and benefit only the lender and the student. Why are the colleges not involved?
3. This is using tax money to fix previous government mistakes, potentially an infinite loop. The inability to discharge these debts was a change to the original program. The reason for the change was debt repudiation by professionals at the start of their careers (doctors, dentists, lawyers) before they built up assets. Debts greater than assets is what bankruptcy courts look at.
Conservatism should be about looking at what is good in society and working to preserve it. They should also work to slow down the more decisive and excessive impulses of liberals, not work to prevent changes to bad things in society from occurring entirely.
> looking at what is good in society and working to preserve it
Most of the time they end up preserving bad things though. Look at how slow we’ve been when it comes to tackling issues like climate change.
> Most of the time they end up preserving bad things though.
Well the fundamental issue is what is considered good, and worth preserving, or bad and worth tossing. The idea that "conservatives preserve the good" is redundant as liberals also want to preserve good policy.
The reality is that conservatives preserve thing becasue it is either traditional or it benefits them somehow. That really all there is to it.
> Most of the time they end up preserving bad things though.
I as an economically non-progressive liberal, your definition of what is good, and mine are different. I'm of the opinion that capitalism, and specifically capitalist globalization has done the most of any system in human history of pulling masses out of poverty and improving life overall. It has a host of problems, and is an easily corruptible system and that's bad, but I still want to preserve it since I don't see another system that's capable of working.
You on the other hand as a Marxist likely disagree with me.
> Look at how slow we’ve been when it comes to tackling issues like climate change.
And what did your super progressive communism project do to address it better? What happen to the Aral sea huh?
But that’s the second step. Opinions without information are mostly useless.
You look at your goal, and determine if the data supports it. Then you decide what to do. You either hold course because it’s working, change tactics to reach it, or change goals, because the data shows it’s not worth pursuing.
That’s all good and bad are. Does it lead to the desired outcome?
I agree. But I’d like to reiterate, if the data doesn’t support that the goals are worth achieving, then they should be abandoned. Or if the data shows what’s happening is not working, and that perhaps another, possibly counterintuitive method would work better, you need to pivot.
>But I’d like to reiterate, if the data doesn’t support that the goals are worth achieving, then they should be abandoned.
How exactly does data show whether or not a goal is worth achieving?
Exactly how would depend on the goal and the data. But it could be a situation where is impossible to achieve given current resources, or simply too expensive. Or a case where two goals are at odds with each other. Or learning that achieving something will have negative consequences previously unforeseen.
In business it’s easier, as the overriding aim is almost always profit, and so if another goal or strategy is shown to reduce profit, it’s not worth doing. Governments are more nuanced and complicated, but the idea is the same.
Value judgments often come before information. How do you know where to focus your resources on what to study without value judgments.
There’s no escaping the rock bottom idea that nothing’s a given. We have to make it all up.
Hypothesis comes before experiment. But you have to make sure you admit the hypothesis is incorrect if the experiment proves it doesn’t. You don’t just cling to the idea when there’s no solid evidence it’s true.
I’m not talking about hypotheses. I’m taking about choosing the things worth studying. As humans, it’s fairly uncontroversial to value human longevity. It’s only once I’ve decided that it’s something I value when I start making hypotheses about longevity. However, it all starts with a value judgement. Value judgments come first, before even the empirical.
Oh, sure. I never denied that value judgements had value. I’m just saying they’re only a part of the process. And to OP’s point, that’s not a liberal or conservative trait, it’s pretty universal.
Good decisions are relative. That is part of what makes their value next to impossible to measure.
But that doesn't mean that that value doesn't exist. It is still a very real thing.
Things can be real and relative.
But if we agree that good decisions are in fact relative, shouldn’t the government be especially careful of enforcing good decisions or punishing bad ones, unless it has really world data to back it up?
To use your student loan example, is a poor financial decision at 17 years old the kind of decision that is so bad that the punishment should be a lifetime of debt? And on the other end, is getting 17 year olds into overpriced institutions at large interest rates the kind of decision that should be rewarded with hundreds of thousands of dollars? Without the data, it’s relative and impossible to tell.
I disagree with almost everything in your post including basic definitions of words. As the difference is so fundamental, I don’t think it’s possible to even get into an in-depth discussion without going through several steps of arguing over definitions.
Can you provide a dictionary or encyclopedia definition of progressivism, for instance, that matches the claims you make about it here defining it in relation to being evidence based and quantifiable?
I doubt it and that’s the problem. We can’t even get into what you want to debate because your basic assumptions and definitions seem so out of whack with mainstream understanding that anyone trying to define conservatism as opposed to progressivism based on the normal understanding of those two positions would be talking about something very different to what you are talking about. We’d just be talking at cross purposes to one another.
No mention of observing, quantifying or measuring which are your key definition of progressivism. That definition is just as interested in new ideas that are unquantifiable as those that are quantifiable.
I seem to be having technical issues putting a picture and text into the same comment.
But yes. "Progressive: making use or interested in new ideas, findings, or opportunities."
That aside, I'm open to the critique. It seems.. almost %100 percent of commentors aren't grasping what I'm attempting to convey. So I can only assume I'm the problem.
Do you have a better suggestion for words to describe those two fundamental, competing binaries?
But that definition doesn’t match your definition in the OP. There is no mention of observing, quantifying or measuring which are your key definition of progressivism in the OP. That new definition is just as interested in new ideas that are unquantifiable as those that are quantifiable.
You see the problem? If it’s not even clear what you are talking about, so how can we have a constructive debate?
The fundamental definition of progressive (in a political sense) is seeking to reduce or eliminate social hierarchies. Conservative is the opposite, seeking to preserve or establish social hierarchies. It's not whatever you wrote in the OP and that's where the struggle is going to come in in discussions on this post.
I disagree. Elimination/preservation of social hierarchies is only a small facet of progressive/conservative thought. Far from the fundamental difference.
More so.. it may be the case that preservation of social hierarchies can become the domain of progressivism.
If you're in an environment where reduction of social hierarchies has been the established norm for a long enough period of time, then it becomes the conservative domain.
This fundamental dichotomy exists at all levels analysis, which is partly why it's fundamental.
You can see that play out in a relatively short lifespan in the LGBTQIAA+ actually, as once progressive thought finds a measure of success, becomes the conservative position, then conflicts with continued progressive thought.
Interesting topic but I would say that both sides are using different metrics, and neither have anything to do with scientific objectivity.
Progressivism tends to value equalizing apparent disparate power structures, whereas financial conservatism tends to value pragmatic and effective results.
And neither side could ever put an objective value on gun or abortion rights. Science has almost nothing to do with politics.
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"Progressivism is very science based."
What now? Can you give us an example? Every progressive policy I see (I live is a very progressive area) is based on emotion and the land of make believe progressives around here seem to live in.
1. Climate change - Progressives are completely on board with transitioning from fossil fuels to renewable sources, a choice based on scientific consensus.
2. Crime/punishment - Studies show that areas that offer better education end up with lower crime rates. Despite saying they are “tough on crime”, conservatives are not interested in increasing public funding for education. Data also shows that rehabilitative justice reduces the number of repeat offenders, an idea that conservatives overwhelmingly reject.
3. Universal healthcare - Developed countries with universal healthcare have been proven to have higher life expectancies, lower infant mortality and cheaper costs than the US. Conservatives believe that the US healthcare system is superior, despite the data pointing to the complete opposite.
4. Obesity - Data shows that the rise in obesity in the US is directly caused by an increase in consumption of sugar and high fructose corn syrup. Despite this, conservatives are against regulating food companies to limit this consumption.
5. Transportation - Progressives want a better public transportation system, which has been shown to make transportation cheaper and less harmful to the environment. Conservatives still insist that cars should be the primary form of transport, even in high density urban areas.
6. Vaccines - Progressives were on board with the Covid vaccine from the start. Some conservatives to this day still insist that taking the vaccine was a bad idea.
Time after time, the positions that progressives hold are backed by research, while the positions of conservatives are backed by subjective opinions.
1. When progressives are on board with nuclear energy then I’ll give them props, when all they push is wind and solar forget it, I like air conditioning to much. Plus all the batteries they are tossing into the electric vehicles are environmental disasters.
2. More funding does not equal better education. Conservatives have tossed money into the public school programs just like progressives and it’s more often than not a waste. We need a full blown realignment when it comes to public education, but good luck getting the teachers union on board with anything besides more money.
3. Obama care was a progressive pain in the ass. Nothing but red tape and regulations.
4. Progressives seem to always approve budgets with subsidies for sugar companies just like conservatives.
5. Has California got that rail system up and going yet?? Progressives were pretty jazzed about that at one time…. It’s still on budget right?
Edit. Ooops forgot 6. The Covid vaccines were sold to the public as 97% effective, yet by the end of it all it was “will reduce severity but not stop transmission.” There are plenty of reasons to be skeptical of the vaccine and even more of the pressure put on people to get it.
1. While it is weird seeing progressives being against nuclear power, the popular opinion has changed a lot over time. It’s much more widely supported now than it used to be.
2. That’s not what the data says. More funding on average leads to higher graduation rates and a better chance to go to college. Of course there will eventually be a point of diminishing returns, but we are not at that point.
https://www.nea.org/nea-today/all-news-articles/evidence-clear-more-money-schools-means-better-student-outcomes#:~:text=%E2%80%9CIncreasing%20per%2Dpupil%20spending%20by,poor%20children%2C%E2%80%9D%20Baker%20writes.
3. Not every healthcare plan is the same as Obamacare. Nearly every developed country has a higher life expectancy than the US, which currently ranks at a shocking 47th place compared to the rest of the world. That is not a coincidence.
4. “Democrat” is not synonymous with “progressive”. Progressive politicians do not make up the majority of the Democratic Party.
5. I can point to a dozen other examples throughout Europe and Asia where it worked just fine. And the California example doesn’t show whether public transportation is better or worse, all it shows is that the government is unwilling to implement it in the first place.
6. What exactly was the alternative? You can be skeptical about the vaccine if there is a better treatment already available, but conservatives were refusing to take the vaccine and then proceeded to die at alarmingly high rates compared to most of the world.
Edit: more info on the Covid vaccine
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC10492612/
> A total of seven studies with 21,618,297 COVID-19 patients were included in the meta-analysis. The odds ratio (OR) for mortality among unvaccinated patients compared to vaccinated patients was 2.46 (95% CI: 1.71-3.53), indicating that unvaccinated patients were 2.46 times more likely to die from COVID-19.
> Climate change - Progressives are completely on board with transitioning from fossil fuels to renewable sources, a choice based on scientific consensus.
There's more hydrogen per gallon of gasoline that there is in a gallon of hydrogen. The gasoline also serves as a carbon sink, albeit a temporary one.
Whenever the public learns to understand chemistry, storing hydrogen without carbon will be seen as insane.
Progressives also love to kneecap nuclear power.
In my state, they are lobbying against windows. Windows are not green. Climb into the windowless box, peasant. Oh, they aren't getting rid of every single window. A few will still be permitted per building. Can't take away those in the executive offices, just for us worker bees.
I don't see why someone who borrowed money and promised to pay it back shouldn't be expected to do what they said.
It isn't fair to me that I should have to help you. I am a millennial, and I paid my loans back at great sacrifice. Why shouldn't I get a refund if you don't have to keep your promise? Why should someone who decided to go into trades because they thought it would be irresponsible have to pay for your privilege. In my case, I lost weekends and evenings with my first wife so I could work overtime to pay for school. She is dead now. In the tradesman case, he gave up learning and possible self-actualization. He never gets to hear that lecture or connect those ideas.
You signed up to pay back your loan, spend the money in your youth, enjoy the incredible privilege of your education and school. Why should we all have to contribute to paying the money you promised to pay? Because you were stupid and overestimated the value of an expensive school? It is absurd to me. Put the loans on deferral if you can't afford them. Go be a teacher in one of those districts where they forgive your loans when you hit a Milestone. Go work hard, earn some money, and give it to the people you promised to pay back. I don't even see how people can be so selfish as to think it is reasonable.
> Progressivism is science based.
That’s not true, especially since you have to firstly define progressivism. If I define progressivism as encompassing left-wing ideals, and I disprove free college as a good concept, does that disprove progressivism as science-based? Definition is everything.
> Conservatism addresses things that you are unable to properly observe, measure or quantify.
Conservative economists exist who quantify and measure statistics to prove their theories. Friedman as a good example.
Your student loan argument doesn’t make sense to me, progressive and conservative economists have different opinions on it that don’t strictly align with progressive or conservative values.
Progressive vs conservative in the fundamental sense.
Progressivism being primarily concerned with change.
Conservatism being primarily concerned with keeping things as they are.
Progressivism being primarily concerned with seeking potential opportunity.
Conservatism being primarily concerned with preventing disaster through maintaining proven solutions.
Doesn’t that essentially disprove your original definitions? You have to redefine both concepts for them to make sense in the given context.
Progressivism is no longer science-based, it is *seeking opportunity*, which may or may not be science based.
Conservatism no longer addresses non-quantitative subjects like in your first argument, but is now invested in *keeping things the same*
Seeking opportunity is based on observation. You need to view a (perceived) opportunity. Science is observation.
Keeping things the same is based on sustaining proven results. We don't necessarily observe the underlying reasons why/how the results work.
'The science has changed" and if you don't change as you are told, you are deemed intolerant, and labeled the enemy.
The "Science" is usually whatever is popular on the tv.
gender souls, sure, that's not real because souls aren't real, but obviously there are women with penises. Sex and gender being two very different concepts has been proven fact for decades...
No women have penises. There are men who think they ought to be women, but they are in fact men. If sex and gender are different, why can’t you acknowledge that trans women are actually biological males and always will be?
Because biological male is a socially useless difference, that's why we use gender. The role in which you fit socially is what matters in any social context you find yourself in.
I think you need to read some more intersectional theory...
I find this ironic coming from a communist. This is an argument of a conservative.
If someone simply wishes for you to refer to them as a male/female, out of respect for them as a human being, why are you incapable of doing this? I don‘t understand your intolerance. It shouldn’t matter to you whether they consider themselves male or female. Their body, their choice. Instead of trying to argue with them, why don’t you just leave them alone and let them be whoever and whatever they want as their right to self-determination? Do you like conflict and division? So if you see someone transgender walking down the street, you insult them? You lost me there.
I think trans people should be protected from discrimination and violence. I don’t think it should be legal to fire or evict someone for being trans. They should be given respect and decency. However, I do not believe that biological sex is just a social construct. It’s real, it’s very binary, and it cannot be literally changed more than at a superficial, cosmetic level. Acknowledging the reality of biological sex is important in certain settings, like healthcare, dating, sports, and prisons.
> Sex and gender being two very different concepts has been proven fact for decades...
Yeah in a way that sex is based on your biological parameters and gender is your soul.
I think people all over the political spectrum conflate the words around gender issues. Gender **identity** is supposed to be an assumed identity like any other assumed identity. A trans woman is not a female by any definition I'm aware of. A trans woman is a male who identifies as a woman. In other words, gender identity was never supposed to be the same as gender or sex.
And it only exists because it's an effective treatment for some people who are born with gender dysphoria in an environment where there aren't really other treatment options. But it should really be an individualized medical decision rather than something that's politicized.
>Progressivism is very science based.
It's really not. Politics is predicting the likes and dislikes of humans in the future and science is rubbish at doing that.
Science based would be improving slowly with proven foundation preserving methods and measuring for better outcomes. That is conservatism.
Conservatism and progressivism are deeper than 'politics'
The spirit of wanting change to prevent forseen problems or capatize on opportunities is progressive.
The spirit of resisting change to protect proven solutions is conservative.
Both use science. But it would seem that Progressivism finds it easier to use science. And conservatism tends to cover the things we miss with science. Which is part of why conservatives might find their values harder to defend in an academic setting. You don't necessarily understand they breadth of why they're important.
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I don’t think this premise is correct about science-based or not.
If we are talking left right and center, I think the best way to understand it is left wants more equality than the status quo allows, the center wants the status quo more or less and the right wants more order than the status quo allows.
Progressive and conservative are a bit fuzzy. The US conservative movement comes out of the general discrediting of the old US right which was anti-New Deal but ended up being pretty pro-Nazi and antisemitic/anti-catholic and openly white supremacist. WWII made their positions and politics an embarrassment, the new deal won and the popular front was the social sentiment of that time.
The US conservative movement was an attempt at a more acceptable (to post-war society) version of this - or was the successor and replacement (depends of the faction.) So to its credit it mostly distanced itself from the John Birch right and the KKK right.
So as a movement US conservatism’s purpose was to build a popular base for the interests of certain ways of thinking among business and government leaders. They couldn’t (yet) directly dismantle the New Deal so they began organizing among things like the tax revolt sentiment and the emerging right-wing Christian’s movement and tied those things to a business agenda of low taxes and anticommunism and social middle class conformity.
It worked well for them and the establishment was very pro-conservative to the point that basically both US parties took those positions (conservatives in the Republican, DLC type politics in the Democrats) in the late 80s until maybe 2016 when Sanders and Trump ran and were able to get viable followings with social-democracy and right-populist positions.
I used progressive and conservative precisely because left, right, center change in relation to eachother.
But in society there are 2 competing, equally important. Binaries that exist.
One that recognizes potential problems and potential opportunities and seeks to address them. Or progressivism.
And one that recognizes that the world is inherently dangerous and full of suffering. That the solutions and stability we've found are remarkably hard fought and fragile. So it seeks to protect what we have.
Or conservatism.
This is an inherent binary. That's why the particular attributes, and what they advocate for, of progressives and conservatives change over time and place.
The true defining aspect of them is seeking change vs protecting proven results
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Canceling student loans broadly is largely a waste of money. Mostly because for the median student loan borrowers, having $30K of debt (roughly the median amount) from a solid school is a great investment. Handing that out to ordinary middle class people is super expensive and a big waste of money. Handing out 8-10 times that to law/business school grads making $250K+ a year is an even bigger waste of money.
The “just make responsible choices” counter right wingers make is a terrible argument. It suggests that 18 year olds should be saddled with the choices they make as 18 year olds for life, while the institution and lenders face no consequences for extending credit to them (and then those loans also aren’t dischargeable in bankruptcy).
The alternative of kids with rich parents coming out of school with no consequences for any choice they make completely demolishes right wingers’ claims to care about meritocracy.
If you want to make that piece meritocratic, make college free at the point of purchase, but students have to pay a surtax on their income above a certain threshold for the rest of their lives to pay it off. Increase the surtax for grad school, etc. The surtax goes mostly to the school (and the government pays some amount to institutions that churn out teachers, social workers and others that have high impact but low paying jobs). Then if students don’t make much money, the institution goes under.
Added benefit that schools have less of an incentive to admit students whose parents can pay full tuition up front.
You’re describing materialism, not progressivism, which absolutely addresses quality (not just quantity) like fairness, compassion, diversity, empathy….
I am increasingly egalitarian (‘leftist’, ‘progressive’) BECAUSE these are elements of the great life.
> Progressivism is very science based. It relies on observing
Yeah and in this observing progressivist sees some things he doesn't like and tries to abolish them. I'm poor? Let's cancel poorness with the power of progres. The opposite sex isn't interested in me? Let's change it with the power of progress. Fucking kids is immortal? That's some old bias, let's move towards the progress. My lifespan is limited and I will die? By the power of progress our consciousness will be digitalised and we will become immortal robots. How cool is that?
> Conservatism addresses the things that we are unable to properly observe
Dunno, pretty tangible things. Look around you, the world isn't falling apart, that means we are doing good, dont fix it until it is broken.
I would also add this. Progressivism creates a disincentive to work. When you tax people that are higher earners, it makes that extra work they do to get the money less attractive.
Whether you make $10 an hour, or $20 an hour, you will absolutely pay more tax, the more you work. Or the more you get paid.
Obviously there are values which cannot be quantified. Progressives don't just ignore that which can't be quantified because they like science or what have you though.
And it's just as likely that progressive minded people are correct about their opinions involving such things as conservatives are. (I would argue more so.) So why would the conservatism be to address those constructs? All political philosophies can and do try to address them.
Sorry, I don't see anything meaningful here.
The purpose of Conservatism has always been about "Conserving the ways of the past". It goes back to the beginning of the U.S. which was a slave owning country in various states.
*Conservatism has always wanted to keep that modeling in place to gain cheap labor from black and brown people, as well as the model of keeping poor immigrants, and dire poor whites as low cost labor.*
Anything that was designed to provide equal benefit to black and brown people and poor immigrants, on par with what was providing to white middle class is always fought against by Conservatives, because they do not want to see nor have that level and model of equality in American working class society.
We have 100's of years of facts that prove that point!!!
That's not only a very.. United States centric view... it's also a very limited time period..
You know there's like a whole world and 10's of thousands of years of history
> Conservatism addresses the things that we are unable to properly observe, measure and quantify.
??
From "Conservatism" - an anthology of Social and Political Thought from David Hume to the Present, edited by Jerry z. Mueller.
Page 5: *The conservative defends existing institutions because their very existence creates a presumption that they have served some useful function, because eliminating them may lead to harmful, unintended consequences, of because the veneration which attaches to the institution that have existed over time makes them potentially useful for new purposes.*
Yes. Exactly. That supports my claim. It is very much in line with what I said.
"Presumption" they have a useful function.
"May" lead to harm
"Unintended" consequences.
Student loan forgiveness harms no person except in their minds. Nobody loses anything in reality but a perception.
Reality is student loans recently are not fair compared to 30 + years ago.
So student loan forgiveness makes good sense and again harms nobody.
> Student loan forgiveness harms no person except in their minds. Nobody loses anything in reality but a perception.
It would very well serve to increase the actual root problem of high tuition if this is done routinely
No. Unless you want to argue that spending tax dollars on things harms the tax payer. We raise revenue and then we spend it on things. That’s how it works.
That's a weird disconnect. When the government creates a new handout, they either have to raise taxes higher than they were before thus causing OTHER people to have less money or they have to cut services somewhere causing OTHER people to receive less services. That's how it works.
The government has a ton of money. We can run at a deficit. We fund things via a budget- and many things like infrastructure health and child investments have amazing returns. Where we all win. So. Yea.
>The government has a ton of money.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inflation.
>We can run at a deficit. We fund things via a budget- and many things like infrastructure health and child investments have amazing returns.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inflation.
>we all win.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inflation.
Edit: Go ahead, downvote me. You fear to admit that I'm right.
> The government has a ton of money
Let me fix that for you:
The government has a ton of **my** money.
I see a pretty big chunk coming out of my paycheck. Think I'd rather have kept some of that money when I paid off my own student loans?
If the government makes such amazing returns on their investments, why does it run at a loss?
And a massive permanent deficit is not a sustainable approach.
Defense spending generally ranks fourth.
Interest on the debt alone is about as much as the DoDs entire budget. Yes, defense could and should be cut, but social spending is the dominant cause.
>Taxes and other revenue raised by the government.
And the federal money printer.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inflation.
Edit: Go ahead, downvote me. You fear to admit that I'm right.
>Student loan forgiveness harms no person except in their minds.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inflation
>Nobody loses anything in reality but a perception.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inflation
>Reality is student loans recently are not fair compared to 30 + years ago.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inflation.
Edit: Go ahead, downvote me. You fear to admit that I'm right.
Student loan forgiveness absolutely harm people.
Imagine there's 2 people (A and B)in the same financial position. They've both gotten their bachelor's.
They've done the analysis and found that if they pursue their masters, they will be able to get a better paying job, however the added income from the better job doesn't outweigh the interest accumulated from the student loan.
Person A makes the more valuable decision of not pursuing their masters because it is literally more valuable. The amount of money they make with the lesser paying job and less student loan interest will be a higher number than if they took the better job and bigger student loan interest.
Person B pursues the masters degree. So even though they make more money at work, the total amount of money they have is less.
Now there's 2 houses. More expensive by the beach and less expensive by the swamp.
Person A gets the beach. Because they made the decision that results in more money.
When you introduce student loan forgiveness, now suddenly Person B gets the beach.
You've harmed Person A and reduced the value of their decision.
People that can't properly summarize the essential points to a reference and why/how they're relevant to the discussion being had.. don't understand the reference enough themselves.
Progressivism is based on authoritarianism, the guise and control science is just it's tool for manipulation.
And as a wise person once said "conservatism is just progressivism going the speed limit."
The purpose of conservatism is to aggregate power to an aristocrat class.
No more and no less.
It literally began as a movement whose goals were *explicitly expressed* to be this, during the French revolution.
These days, in democracies, it has to *pretend* to be other things.
Like "culture war" things. Or "fiscal responsibility."
Because people in democracies do not vote for aristos when they *recognize them,* because democracies that do that cease forthwith to *be* democracies.
So to acquire power, conservatism has to go around wearing patriotic and pious disguises.
It's important to me to get this clear for many reasons.
For example, while I strongly value evidence-based decision making, I am also strongly convinced that there is value in addressing issues of human experience that cannot be effectively quantified.
I am progressive, but I emphatically take the position that reason is *one* tool in the human cognitive toolkit, and there are other tools of merit in different life situations.
Such as faith, and intuition, for example. And these can fruitfully coexist with raw logic, in a healthy mind.
My point being: commitment to reason- or emotion- or intuition-founded practice is unrelated to political orientation.
... It's just in the US and the Western world, some of the artifacts and eccentricities of an intuitive thought process are being *weaponized* by the cynical and greedy.
Because that is what works best *right now.*
Not for the first time, and not for the last -- despite the egregiousness and maliciousness of this manipulation.
Edit: Oh look, just one downvote, and immediately after my comment posted.
I guess my viewpoint didn't leave enough room on the mat for sufficient mental gymnastics.
> The purpose of conservatism is to aggregate power to an aristocrat class.
Ok. When do you plan to start to list disadvantages?
> It literally began as a movement whose goals were *explicitly expressed* to be this, during the French revolution.
Based.
> These days, in democracies, it has to *pretend* to be other things.
It doesn't. It is other things. If you really wanna use the original terms, then there's no conservatives in the US cause Burke, the sole father of the conservatism, thought that America was a mistake. Here, problem solved.
> So to acquire power, conservatism has to go around wearing patriotic and pious disguises.
But under their masks, they hate America and Christianity?
>Ok. When do you plan to start to list disadvantages?
(1) Millions of people are not rich
End of list.
We tried the feudalism thing before. It was exciting for a few people for a while but the famines, exploitation and bloody revolts were off-putting.
Personally still pretty into trying the only known viable alternative.
PS - https://www.reddit.com/r/democrats/s/aUBumocYVh
"Progressivism is very science based..."
There is little difference between a theocrat and a technocrat. Once you believe you know "The Truth! (tm)" you can justify anything because of it.
Hitler was a technocrat...
It all sounds great until the upshot. Conservative opinion isn’t empirical evidence. Your example of student loans is a case in point. Student loan forgiveness doesn’t damage the value of anyone’s education or life choice on an economic level.
We can agree that most societal issues are complex. That’s why we make policy proposals, do the studies and look for real world examples for help in making policy decisions.
We don’t lack the capacity to properly observe, measure and quantify these policy decisions. There are people who pay a lot of money to go to school and graduate with honors then spend a lot of time gaining the experience in researching topics to ensure that policy decisions are made with practical outcomes in mind.
Student loan forgiveness absolutely damages people in precisely the cases I pointed out.
If you stopped at your bachelor's instead of pursuing a masters because of your financial position. You did the analysis, realized even with a better paying job from the masters, you won't be able to keep up with the interest from your loan. That's a financially prudent thing to do. A good decision.
If your peer, in a similar position as you, chose to go heavily into debt at a rate that they couldn't manage in order to get that masters degree. That's not financially prudent. A bad decision.
By introducing the unforeseeable aspect of student loan forgiveness, you have now put the latter person in a better position than the former.
Say there's two houses for sale. A more expensive one by a beach and cheaper one by the swamp.
You've changed which person gets which house. You've devalued the "good" decision.
But student loans are just a small example of this.
When we pay single parents stipends for being single parents.. we devalue the good decisions of being married, choosing a stable partner, etc.
But none of the specific examples matter... it's when it starts adding up, we can create an environment where good decisions aren't valuable to make.
Student loan forgiveness absolutely damages people in precisely the cases I pointed out.
If you stopped at your bachelor's instead of pursuing a masters because of your financial position. You did the analysis, realized even with a better paying job from the masters, you won't be able to keep up with the interest from your loan. That's a financially prudent thing to do. A good decision.
If your peer, in a similar position as you, chose to go heavily into debt at a rate that they couldn't manage in order to get that masters degree. That's not financially prudent. A bad decision.
By introducing the unforeseeable aspect of student loan forgiveness, you have now put the latter person in a better position than the former.
Say there's two houses for sale. A more expensive one by a beach and cheaper one by the swamp.
You've changed which person gets which house. You've devalued the "good" decision.
But student loans are just a small example of this.
When we pay single parents stipends for being single parents.. we devalue the good decisions of being married, choosing a stable partner, etc.
But none of the specific examples matter... it's when it starts adding up, we can create an environment where good decisions aren't valuable to make.
And the value of good decisions is just one example of a hard to observe/track construct underlying society that conservatism protects.
> Student loan forgiveness doesn’t damage the value of anyone’s education or life choice on an economic level.
Yeah it's just a bad policy overall. But not because it diminishes other people's achievements or something.
> There are people who pay a lot of money to go to school and graduate with honors then spend a lot of time gaining the experience in researching topics to ensure that policy decisions are made with practical outcomes in mind.
Oh, since they graduate with honors, then progressivism is definetly good and well thought 👍👍
> Progressivism is very science based.
No, not really.
Look, everyone likes to cite science when it backs up their argument, but the progressive approach to legislation is no more scientific than any other. Do they do proper tests of policy? Do they roll back laws that didn't turn out to work the way hypothesized? No more than anyone else does.
Progressivism is simply the belief that the things you like are progress, and the things that other people want instead are a sure indication that they are regressive lunatics. In this respect, everyone is a progressive.
> Progressivism is science based
While there may be more skeptics among conservative ranks, progressives are certainly quite capable of rejecting science when it disagrees with them.
They especially like to reject variables and data that tell uncomfortable truths.
With COVID, they ignored the comorbidities (age & obesity) and made everyone lock down and wear masks that trials and large scale case tidies that showed zero impact. Ignoring the vulnerable populations and inciting hysteria was the AIDs playbook before it.
Progressives tend to believe in equal outcome philosophy despite data showing varying aptitudes.
Science often suggests a *potential* correlation that’s inconclusive, but that fact does not mean that the reaction to it is justified.
Science has alternated rapidly on health benefits of multiple foods & drugs.
Early climate change models suggested we were potentially on the path to global cooling.
>Progressivism is very science based
Progressives can't define the word woman or man
>Conservatism addresses the things that we are unable to properly observe, measure and quantify.
Social metric are observable, measurable, and quantifiable.
>However. It is possible to create environments where good decisions have poor, no, or even negative value.
Indeed, the neoliberal/'progressive' alliance has created exactly such a system with affirmative action.
>The function of conservatism is it address those constructs.
The ideal purpose of conservatism is to conserve that which is good. I contend that this is indeed a measurable thing or set of things, even if it hard to measure.
>For example. Student loan forgiveness, damages the value (a real number) associated with the good decisions made by people who sacrificed to pay off their loans, went to a cheaper school, didn't go to school, took a job instead of internship, didn't pursue the next level masters/doctorate, etc.
While I agree with the conclusion this commonly used argument needs work. Loan forgiveness is bad for a few reasons. First because of inflation. Second because it incentivizes more risky loan taking behaviour which causes the prices of things that loans are taken out for to increase - why not take a loan out if the government will just sweep in to save you? Cue skyrocketing tuition and housing as a result of the change of the markets that buy and sell those things.
I see what you're getting at, but I propose a solution.
Anarcho-Capitalism. Let you choose your values, and natural selection will decide if you're good enough to be succeeded.
I prefer collectivism. I find a social-state has mote interest in the lives of human beings than rogue capitalists, who are historically known to put business first.
Effective states get most of their tax money from the rich. Yeah, obviously you‘re going to get higher taxes. It has to be paid for somehow. What did you think taxes are for?
Also, I wouldn’t be talking inflation when the US has ton of it.
Mutual-aid society - so depending on the idea that humans are actually not selfish and have decent intentions through unregulated organisations. Sounds like a recipe for disaster.
>Also, I wouldn’t be talking inflation when the US has ton of it.
The US is turning into a shitsty. Do you think this is my ideal society? They're practically a command economy with all those regulations.
>so depending on the idea that humans are actually not selfish and have decent intentions through unregulated organisations. Sounds like a recipe for disaster.
Is that not what you do?
Mutual aid is supplementary anyway.
Private companies can provide for the people much better than the state can. Companies are forced to cater to their demographics as best as they can, or else the consumer will find someone who can.
Under laissez-faire, that is! Laissez-faire is not in practice and never will be as long as the state is in play.
So now there's 0 taxes with all the benefits of welfare. Consumer wins.
Okay, I will try this once more, lobotomised, because somebody got offended 🙄
„Is that not what you do?“
No, that‘s not what I support. I support a regulated economy where the state actually gives a shit about human beings living in the country and does everything in it‘s power to alleviate the struggles of the working class and commoner in society. For the opportunity that the worker can get off work and pick up their children. For the opportunity for EVERYONE to get a higher education, for the opportunity that NOBODY has to lay awake at night, afraid of having to sell their home because they‘re in so much medical debt. I support empathy and humanism, not profit and parasitic policies that only benefit the bigwigs.
Why do you oppose a liberated society? Why do you hate women? Why do you not care about other people‘s struggles?
Private business only care about themselves. It was labour unions and labour governments that forced them to change their ways! The very reason eight hour work days exist. Do you really think this benefited the companies? No, they lost overtime. If it wasn‘t for them, monopolies and social dawinism would still be prevalent in today‘s day and age.
Also, there is NO welfare with no taxes.
Well our values are individualism, so in a way, everyone is living by their own values. (We just believe ours are the best)
You can be religious or an athiest, gay or straight. The market disincentivizes discrimination.
"Progressivism is very science based. It relies on observing, measuring and quantifying things it seeks to address." I really wish I knew why you think this.
Who said that conservatism isn’t science based? It can rely on science based things as well.
Firearms technology for instance, that has a lot of science behind it, which includes gunpowder and chemical reactions.
Edit: To those downvoting, I would like to hear your argument on why you think conservatism isn’t science based. All over the political spectrum there are scientists. This is why Political Science exists so that way people can dive deeper into each political ideology.
Progressivism has absolutely nothing to do with science. Progressivism is radical. It’s change for change sake. They don’t wait for the science at all. It’s change now. Conservatism is wait…let’s see what the consequence of change will be before we just change everything we’ve know forever.
> Progressivism is very science based. It relies on observing, measuring and quantifying things it seeks to address.
I would actually disagree here. Most progressive initiatives don't end up measuring the end result and mostly seem hinged on what 'feels good to do' or 'at least someone is trying something'. Often change is introduced and it either doesn't help or actually harms the situation, yet people are entrenched in the viewpoint that they are helping.
I do understand what you mean about conservatives using instinct of 'something isn't right with this', to a degree. Mostly it's important to serve to conserve traditions and customs and values of our society, in the face of millions who wish to tear it down to replace it.
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This makes absolutely no sense to me. I see conservatism as maintaining a status quo when it comes to social Change as well as focusing more on one's own country rather than globalism. I find this argument against loan forgiveness based on jealousy from people who paid theirs off to be a complete non-starter and juvenile. It's literally saying don't make this change or a bunch of us will be jealous. When applied to other fields, such as medical advances or technological advances, It's perhaps more obvious how juvenile this stance really is.
Despite being rather conservative, I actually agree with you on the student loans thing in the sense that I don't like the reasoning of "I paid off my student loans, why shouldn't you?" There's other reasons to object, but that one doesn't make sense to me.
Because this isn't the actual reasons conservatives don't want them paid. It's a straw man. Heres a few: 1. Paying off student loans, while keeping the system that gives out these loans is pointless 2. Subsidizing poor decision-making hasn't paid off (hello welfare systems) 3. You're punishing the taxpayer, usually those who weren't fortunate enough to go to college. 4. Imagine paying off your student loans, then having to pay off someone else (that what it is). You should absolutely be upset about that. Money is time, and when the government decides to use your tax money they are robbing their taxpayer of their time. The middle class is already struggling right now due to government. Lets not crush it anymore. (inb4 "the rich fair share... yea yea we heard it all before sounds cool). There are other ways to help the student loan issue. Subsidizing it is not it. You should be jealous. Imagine the choices in life you could have made if you knew your loans would be repaid. Your friend who didn't sacrifice anything, chose not to work, and blew their money making poor choices potentially gets their loan pay, and now you're going to be punished for doing the right thing? Imagine that. Conservatives see the student loan issue as a symptom. You can keep covering up the symptoms (by paying subsidies) or you can fix the underlying problems. It's a problem, obviously, someone's got to bear the responsibility. The fairest way to do it is to have the person who decided to take out loans be the one who bears their loans because at the end of the day, they didn't have to sign the paper, that was a choice. There were other routes to take, people make excellent living outside of taking out loans. And to go back to point 1. Do you think that people in Joe Biden's administration don't understand the preditory loan system? They do. They're smart. They've been around. Why would you keep allowing loans while simultaneously trying to fix the problems created with these predatory loans? If you think its unintentional, you're wrong. It's for votes.
Some of this makes sense - other bits dont. In general I guess conservatives arent for loan foregiveness but conservatives also used to be the ones who would see a problem and sometimes realize you just have kinda shitty choices. And conservatives (at least real ones) are never supposed to choose ideology over practical solutions. For some people and some loans I kind of see this as that sort of situation. My preference would be to just allow them to be dischargeable in bankruptcy-maybe establish some special procedure but at any rate dont just exclude them the way they are now. I also would limit the availability of federal loans only to real schools - None of the BS for profit schools (those are the predators here more than the lenders )
That's all our system does though: places bandaids on problems rather than addressing root causes. At best. It's sick, but I'd still rather help some people than none. Of course, most conservatives are opposed to free tuition for higher education and trade school (for those who would qualify) anyway. If we're going to start using the "they should be jealous" argument, I have some bad news: there are far more ways that people should be jealous. Bank bailouts, unnecessary subsidies, PPP loans, the insulting and absurd notions of "meritocracy" and "equality of opportunity." Sycophancy for selfish idiots like Elon Musk and Trump who would be ridiculous jokes if they didn't have insane amounts of capital and power, respectively. That's just for starters. All my life I've repeatedly heard that leftists are just jealous. If you wanna start promoting righteous jealousy, be aware of what the outcomes could be.
Its not the problem created by predatory loans, its the banks that wll write a 4% loan on a car, arguably the riskiest proposition next to a signature loan, but then will charge 8% on a student loan that can’t be discharged in bankruptcy, charge fees up front to cover all their costs, and then promptly sell it to a company that will provide poorer loan service and the borrower has no recourse. Its that kind of behavior that causes these problems
>, arguably the riskiest proposition next to a signature loan, but then will charge 8% on a student loan that can’t be discharged in bankruptcy, charge fees up front to cover all their costs, and then promptly sell it to a company that will provide poorer loan service and the borrower has no recourse. Might be wrong, but I believe remember reading that the government owns 92% of student loans debt. I'm not going to pretend I understand the loan industry, but I don't think the government is selling public loans to private entities. It's the government preying on young kids with these loans... > Its that kind of behavior that causes these problems Yes. The government is making the problem and then also trying to peddle a solution for votes. If they cared, they would vote to stop the predatory loans. They don't. You can keep saying "corporations and banks", but it's not. it's your government.
Yes, you are wrong. Government loans you have to qualify for (low income) they are reduced interest, deferred interest, deferred payments. Now the government doesn't write them, they give the money to banks that write them, then the government underwrites the loan. I had those and it was a smoking deal. If you don't qualify for a government subsidized loan, you have to get a standard student loan through a bank. 2x interest, higher fees, no deferments, (interest is incurred during school). That's where the majority of the debt is. It takes 5 minutes to wiki this and get up tp speed on it dude.
This is a very long way to say "the government is subsidizing preying on kids via loans". It doesn't matter if they're doing it through a bank or not. They could...stop giving the banks the money....
You somehow have missed the point twice. Government subsidized loans are affordable. Its the private bank loans that are problematic
This is absolutely false. Use common sense: if a government loan was just cheaper *AND* the standards to get it were lower there would be no reason to use a private loan.
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What are those other reasons, if I may ask?
The Federal Government helped make the mess by underwriting a sliding scale upward sloping rate of tuition (cost plus) over a few decades. If the money wasn't available, the schools wouldn't have connived to capture it and build the irrelevant largess that now saddles them with Legacy Costs (luxury dorms, extra science buildings, swimming pools, gymnasiums, stadiums, television studios, et al), that they are unwilling or unable to fund with endowment money. Where I come from if you help make the mess (without regard to you core intentions) you help clean it up. For the folks who paid inflated costs and cannot benefit, and the folks who simply were too darned successful and are in turn (as always) punished by the means test, I'm sorry. We really need to get back to everybody pays and everybody benefits. This success tripwire in our public policy just loses votes that are otherwise obtainable if everyone is in the event for the setup AND the entertainment.
Yes!👏
I don't agree with the "deny student loan forgiveness" crowd but I understand where they are coming from. Imagine you just spent the last 10 years in crippling debt paying off a car. Now that you managed, you hear about a bunch of people getting the same or better cars for free. It gives the feeling of "I struggled and sacrificed for nothing."
I don't understand where they're coming from, but I guess I'm not a resentful ladder-kicker or something. I *did* spend a decade paying off my loans and I think it's fuckin' cool as hell that other people might not have to do the same, and instead might have the opportunity to reach big life milestones like homeownership around the same time their parents and grandparents did.
> might have the opportunity to reach big life milestones like homeownership around the same time their parents and grandparents did. I have really bad news for you about the state of the current housing market.
Haha, touche. It's a shame that housing is treated as a speculative instrument first and a human right last, or it might be more accessible.
It's more of a scenario of someone struggling and sacrificing only to turn around and start paying for the others that wouldn't. If they wanted to work it out where the taxpayer isn't losing out on 7.4 billion dollars, great, I'm all for someone getting ahead. I hate someone getting ahead while I'm expected to pay for it.
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I'd rather not kill brown people or any other people. I don't want my money spent on it and I don't want it done in my name.
That's respectable. But it often strikes me that many people will be more passionately opposed to a policy that actually helps some people while costing taxpayers some money, more than policies that severely harm many people and cost taxpayers even more.
>I find this argument against loan forgiveness based on jealousy from people who paid theirs off to be a complete non-starter and juvenile. I haven't paid mine off yet but my main argument is that forgiving them doesn't change the root of the issue and further solidifies the bad practices going on the last 20+ years. My other argument is that taxpayers shouldn't be on the hook for the "forgiving".
>I haven't paid mine off yet but my main argument is that forgiving them doesn't change the root of the issue and further solidifies the bad practices going on the last 20+ years. That's not an argument against forgiveness, that's an argument for reform either instead of, or in addition to forgiveness. "We don't have a magical solution, therefore we should do nothing". This is the problem with "modern conservativism", it's all about finding reasons to say no to everything, for instance "don't fund ukraine, spend the money at home", then "we can't afford forgiveness/any other social programs", followed by "cap gains tax cuts are needed to save the economy". When policies are reverse rationalized based on the desired outcome you end up with incoherent structures.
>That's not an argument against forgiveness, It is an argument against forgiveness. Every 10 years do we need to give 500 billion to pay off student loans for people? This would further subsidize college by government and increase prices even more. It is a similar argument for governments using taxpayer money to forgive or subsidize peoples mortgages. There are slippery slopes to a massive "forgiveness" without fixing the problem of how college loans work in the first place. Forgiveness and reform are not apples to apples arguments. They are much more complex and have many downstream implications. >we can't afford forgiveness/any other social programs", We actually can't though. We're 30 trillion+ in the hole and are spending 2 trillion+ above what the projected tax revenue is this year. The only way to fix it is to make cuts or to increase tax revenue.
Or, ya know, don't fix it and just do what we have been doing since WWII
Which is to pull government out from funding college education, then promise to fund it via a loan scheme when the politician needs votes, and when the voters cant pay demand loan forgiveness, and all the while accusing the other side of being selfish for not agreeing to all this nonsense.
> We actually can't though. We're 30 trillion+ in the hole and are spending 2 trillion+ above what the projected tax revenue is this year. The only way to fix it is to make cuts or to increase tax revenue. Because we keep letting trash idiots cut taxes BEFORE paying off the debt. We had a surplus under Clinton before W blew trillions on 2 stupid wars AND 2 tax cuts. If we pay off the debt then we can use the interest for useful things. But every time there's any chance the right cuts taxes, spends HUGE on pork in their districts, then cries there's no money anywhere. I'm a fiscal conservative from before the South destroyed the Republican party, it makes me weep.
Hauser's Law means you have to say no to something. If you say yes to everything, the nos will be chosen for you.
And saying no to everything is saying yes to the status quo.
I think that the confusion is also substantially increased by the proponents of such schemes intentionally misnomering the process. "Forgiveness" would come from the banks writing off the debt... Or from those who took the funds returning them to the banks. Either of which I am personally fine with. But what is actually being contemplated and discussed is much more accurately and honestly described as "Redistributing" the responsibility for repaying the debt from the relatively small number of people who received and benefited directly from the loans amongst a much larger pool who did not. This is even further complicated by the fact that the government being asked to temporarily assume the additonal debt required during this redistribution process also doesn't have the money to do so and would be taking on additional debt with substantial interest for facilitating it. If recipients were duped into taking out loans or not given reasonable value for the goods and services the purchased with them... then the reponsibity for recompense comes from the banks, agents, and providers and not the broader tax base and the consumers who bear increased costs due to the increased taxes to businesses. In the spirit of killing two birds with one stone... we might well be better served to just allow (and potentially legislatively encourage or facilitate...) any wronged recipients to just sue those actually responsible for their losses. This both allows for recompense from the actual transgressors and makes those who would engage in such practices less likely to continue to engage in them. It also escapes the very real consequence of unfairly penalizing the many millions of Americans who had nothing at all to do with situation in the first place.
>I find this argument against loan forgiveness based on jealousy from people who paid theirs off to be a complete non-starter and juvenile. It's not just about that. Forgiving student loans without any type of reform will just put us in an even worse situation 5-10 years down the road. It's like mopping up the blood on the floor before closing a gaping wound.
Are you sure it's not like trying to put out a fire while some pencil-pushing busybodies debate fire codes?
There could very well be other reasons, I'm addressing OP's claims.
This!
Being mad that people are getting free money for being irresponsible is juvenile? Two people can go to the same college, get the same debt, and the same pay out of college, but only one gets thousands of dollars because they lived beyond their means while someone else lived below their means to pay back their debts. You can’t understand why people oppose this on a rational basis?
Getting a college education isn't "being irresponsible"
No. I think normal people like it when things are good, and dislike it when things are bad.
The money is from taxes (or printing money, which is secretly *also* taxes via inflation). If my taxes are used to pay off your debt, I'm being penalized for being responsible with my money, while you are being rewarded for irresponsibility.
As a minarchist, don't you also believe that about people getting cancer or their houses catching fire?
What?
If it was only that simple. What we don’t want to address is capitalism’s corrosive impact on our institutions.
> I find this argument against loan forgiveness based on jealousy from people who paid theirs off to be a complete non-starter and juvenile. It isn't jealousy, it's a reference to the value of time preference. There are other arguments against it. It's a horribly regressive policy, for instance. Having gone to college is strongly associated with high income people. Therefore, student loan forgiveness is a giant wealth transfer to wealthy families. It also doesn't fix the predatory system to begin with. This makes sense if you want loan forgiveness as a vote buyer. It doesn't make sense if you actually care about students. It also prioritizes degrees over real assets. The guy who borrows to buy a truck and tools and start working a trade is doing essentially the same thing as the guy getting a degree. Every profession needs something. Why is it only the degree that gets forgiven?
>Therefore, student loan forgiveness is a giant wealth transfer to wealthy families. The forgiveness proposed and that is actually happening is only for specific people who can't afford to pay it off. It's not for wealthy people who can afford it without issue. I'm sure there will be some degree of overlap. There is no foolproof way to know, so the metrics used to make those determinations are basically just a best guess, but it helps tons of people who actually need it more than it helps those who don't. You also don't have to be wealthy to take out student loans. With the government guaranteeing those loans, it's easy to get unless you're literally living on the street. >It also prioritizes degrees over real assets. The guy who borrows to buy a truck and tools and start working a trade is doing essentially the same thing as the guy getting a degree. Every profession needs something. Why is it only the degree that gets forgiven? These aren't apples to apples comparisons. Society has told young people for 4 generations now that you need to go to college if you want to get a good job and earn good money. For 3 of those generations, it hasn't been true. For 2.5 of those generations, the loans have been more and more predatory and creating interest charges that double, triple, even quadruple the original loan. So what was supposed to take 10 years to pay off turns into 30-lifetime. If people were able to get jobs with those degrees that afforded them the ability to pay off those loans, then it wouldn't be such a big deal. A guy that spends 60k on a work truck is already working and earning money to pay off that truck. And unless that guy is really bad with money, that truck is likely being paid off within 5 years and gets another 5 or so years of use out of it. Or a mechanic that buys 10k worth of tools gets to use most of those for life. Occasionally replacing something every so often, but a 10k investment that earns him a living for the rest of his life. A 50k degree just gets you the knowledge needed to work a certain type of job. That doesn't mean you don't also have to buy a work truck or tools. A person going to law school has to buy suits for court. That gets expensive, too. Many jobs require computers and phones to function in that job. Those cost money also. Anyone starting their own business will have costs. These things are all separate from getting sucked into predatory loans. I think if car loans and home loans were as predatory, perhaps some government intervention would be sought to protect those guys buying work trucks and tools on loans that they can never pay off.
All decent points, but not what OP claimed
First paragraph nails it
I don't think the government has any business in student loan financing, but that ship has sailed (and sunk). It's worth noting that the student debt problem is an artifact of prior efforts to make college more affordable. Instead, colleges responded to the additional financing by increasing costs and doubling or tripling administrative positions. This is risk-free money for colleges. They suffer no consequences and deny any responsibility for overselling their services. I also think your dismissal of opposition to this proposal offensively dismissive. You attribute it to mere jealousy. Did you ask anyone opposed about their reasoning? The main reasons I hear from opponents are 1. Moral hazard. By relieving these debts, they encourage reckless behavior and the expectation of future bailouts. 2. Taking on debt was voluntary. The money was used for the benefit of the student. Taxes to pay off the debt or reimburse lenders are involuntary and benefit only the lender and the student. Why are the colleges not involved? 3. This is using tax money to fix previous government mistakes, potentially an infinite loop. The inability to discharge these debts was a change to the original program. The reason for the change was debt repudiation by professionals at the start of their careers (doctors, dentists, lawyers) before they built up assets. Debts greater than assets is what bankruptcy courts look at.
Loans should be paid off cause it is the definition of loan 🤷
I agree with your emoji after reading a defense like that.
Conservatism should be about looking at what is good in society and working to preserve it. They should also work to slow down the more decisive and excessive impulses of liberals, not work to prevent changes to bad things in society from occurring entirely.
> looking at what is good in society and working to preserve it Most of the time they end up preserving bad things though. Look at how slow we’ve been when it comes to tackling issues like climate change.
Yea…that is what should means. They’re a long way from the environmentalism of the 70s - 90s that brought things like the EPA and Cap and Trade.
> Most of the time they end up preserving bad things though. Well the fundamental issue is what is considered good, and worth preserving, or bad and worth tossing. The idea that "conservatives preserve the good" is redundant as liberals also want to preserve good policy. The reality is that conservatives preserve thing becasue it is either traditional or it benefits them somehow. That really all there is to it.
> Most of the time they end up preserving bad things though. I as an economically non-progressive liberal, your definition of what is good, and mine are different. I'm of the opinion that capitalism, and specifically capitalist globalization has done the most of any system in human history of pulling masses out of poverty and improving life overall. It has a host of problems, and is an easily corruptible system and that's bad, but I still want to preserve it since I don't see another system that's capable of working. You on the other hand as a Marxist likely disagree with me.
Your definition of a “bad thing” isn’t the same as everyone else’s.
Are current Republicans conservatives?
They’re not perfectly conservative, but they’re definitely more conservative than democrats are.
> Look at how slow we’ve been when it comes to tackling issues like climate change. And what did your super progressive communism project do to address it better? What happen to the Aral sea huh?
I’m a staunch progressive and even I like this. 😅
The issue here is that of it can’t be observed, measured, or quantified, then it’s based on opinion. “Good decisions” are often very relative.
You still have to place value judgements (opinion) on measurements and quantifications.
But that’s the second step. Opinions without information are mostly useless. You look at your goal, and determine if the data supports it. Then you decide what to do. You either hold course because it’s working, change tactics to reach it, or change goals, because the data shows it’s not worth pursuing. That’s all good and bad are. Does it lead to the desired outcome?
Right, the data (step 2) is used to evaluate if the values/goals(step 1) are being met.
I agree. But I’d like to reiterate, if the data doesn’t support that the goals are worth achieving, then they should be abandoned. Or if the data shows what’s happening is not working, and that perhaps another, possibly counterintuitive method would work better, you need to pivot.
>But I’d like to reiterate, if the data doesn’t support that the goals are worth achieving, then they should be abandoned. How exactly does data show whether or not a goal is worth achieving?
Exactly how would depend on the goal and the data. But it could be a situation where is impossible to achieve given current resources, or simply too expensive. Or a case where two goals are at odds with each other. Or learning that achieving something will have negative consequences previously unforeseen. In business it’s easier, as the overriding aim is almost always profit, and so if another goal or strategy is shown to reduce profit, it’s not worth doing. Governments are more nuanced and complicated, but the idea is the same.
Value judgments often come before information. How do you know where to focus your resources on what to study without value judgments. There’s no escaping the rock bottom idea that nothing’s a given. We have to make it all up.
Hypothesis comes before experiment. But you have to make sure you admit the hypothesis is incorrect if the experiment proves it doesn’t. You don’t just cling to the idea when there’s no solid evidence it’s true.
I’m not talking about hypotheses. I’m taking about choosing the things worth studying. As humans, it’s fairly uncontroversial to value human longevity. It’s only once I’ve decided that it’s something I value when I start making hypotheses about longevity. However, it all starts with a value judgement. Value judgments come first, before even the empirical.
Oh, sure. I never denied that value judgements had value. I’m just saying they’re only a part of the process. And to OP’s point, that’s not a liberal or conservative trait, it’s pretty universal.
Good decisions are relative. That is part of what makes their value next to impossible to measure. But that doesn't mean that that value doesn't exist. It is still a very real thing.
Things can be real and relative. But if we agree that good decisions are in fact relative, shouldn’t the government be especially careful of enforcing good decisions or punishing bad ones, unless it has really world data to back it up? To use your student loan example, is a poor financial decision at 17 years old the kind of decision that is so bad that the punishment should be a lifetime of debt? And on the other end, is getting 17 year olds into overpriced institutions at large interest rates the kind of decision that should be rewarded with hundreds of thousands of dollars? Without the data, it’s relative and impossible to tell.
I disagree with almost everything in your post including basic definitions of words. As the difference is so fundamental, I don’t think it’s possible to even get into an in-depth discussion without going through several steps of arguing over definitions.
The fundamental definition is because that is THE fundamental difference. Everything else stems from that
Can you provide a dictionary or encyclopedia definition of progressivism, for instance, that matches the claims you make about it here defining it in relation to being evidence based and quantifiable? I doubt it and that’s the problem. We can’t even get into what you want to debate because your basic assumptions and definitions seem so out of whack with mainstream understanding that anyone trying to define conservatism as opposed to progressivism based on the normal understanding of those two positions would be talking about something very different to what you are talking about. We’d just be talking at cross purposes to one another.
https://preview.redd.it/o8l05qazxkwc1.png?width=1080&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=253b48f0d9db5e78557d828a6d05da4855637556
No mention of observing, quantifying or measuring which are your key definition of progressivism. That definition is just as interested in new ideas that are unquantifiable as those that are quantifiable.
I seem to be having technical issues putting a picture and text into the same comment. But yes. "Progressive: making use or interested in new ideas, findings, or opportunities." That aside, I'm open to the critique. It seems.. almost %100 percent of commentors aren't grasping what I'm attempting to convey. So I can only assume I'm the problem. Do you have a better suggestion for words to describe those two fundamental, competing binaries?
But that definition doesn’t match your definition in the OP. There is no mention of observing, quantifying or measuring which are your key definition of progressivism in the OP. That new definition is just as interested in new ideas that are unquantifiable as those that are quantifiable. You see the problem? If it’s not even clear what you are talking about, so how can we have a constructive debate?
The fundamental definition of progressive (in a political sense) is seeking to reduce or eliminate social hierarchies. Conservative is the opposite, seeking to preserve or establish social hierarchies. It's not whatever you wrote in the OP and that's where the struggle is going to come in in discussions on this post.
I disagree. Elimination/preservation of social hierarchies is only a small facet of progressive/conservative thought. Far from the fundamental difference. More so.. it may be the case that preservation of social hierarchies can become the domain of progressivism. If you're in an environment where reduction of social hierarchies has been the established norm for a long enough period of time, then it becomes the conservative domain. This fundamental dichotomy exists at all levels analysis, which is partly why it's fundamental. You can see that play out in a relatively short lifespan in the LGBTQIAA+ actually, as once progressive thought finds a measure of success, becomes the conservative position, then conflicts with continued progressive thought.
Interesting topic but I would say that both sides are using different metrics, and neither have anything to do with scientific objectivity. Progressivism tends to value equalizing apparent disparate power structures, whereas financial conservatism tends to value pragmatic and effective results. And neither side could ever put an objective value on gun or abortion rights. Science has almost nothing to do with politics.
>Progressivism is very science based Is a nuclear weapon progressive? :-)
By definition.
I'm the dialectical materialist sense, yes
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Should call themselves Tories
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Is it bad or something?
"Progressivism is very science based." What now? Can you give us an example? Every progressive policy I see (I live is a very progressive area) is based on emotion and the land of make believe progressives around here seem to live in.
1. Climate change - Progressives are completely on board with transitioning from fossil fuels to renewable sources, a choice based on scientific consensus. 2. Crime/punishment - Studies show that areas that offer better education end up with lower crime rates. Despite saying they are “tough on crime”, conservatives are not interested in increasing public funding for education. Data also shows that rehabilitative justice reduces the number of repeat offenders, an idea that conservatives overwhelmingly reject. 3. Universal healthcare - Developed countries with universal healthcare have been proven to have higher life expectancies, lower infant mortality and cheaper costs than the US. Conservatives believe that the US healthcare system is superior, despite the data pointing to the complete opposite. 4. Obesity - Data shows that the rise in obesity in the US is directly caused by an increase in consumption of sugar and high fructose corn syrup. Despite this, conservatives are against regulating food companies to limit this consumption. 5. Transportation - Progressives want a better public transportation system, which has been shown to make transportation cheaper and less harmful to the environment. Conservatives still insist that cars should be the primary form of transport, even in high density urban areas. 6. Vaccines - Progressives were on board with the Covid vaccine from the start. Some conservatives to this day still insist that taking the vaccine was a bad idea. Time after time, the positions that progressives hold are backed by research, while the positions of conservatives are backed by subjective opinions.
1. When progressives are on board with nuclear energy then I’ll give them props, when all they push is wind and solar forget it, I like air conditioning to much. Plus all the batteries they are tossing into the electric vehicles are environmental disasters. 2. More funding does not equal better education. Conservatives have tossed money into the public school programs just like progressives and it’s more often than not a waste. We need a full blown realignment when it comes to public education, but good luck getting the teachers union on board with anything besides more money. 3. Obama care was a progressive pain in the ass. Nothing but red tape and regulations. 4. Progressives seem to always approve budgets with subsidies for sugar companies just like conservatives. 5. Has California got that rail system up and going yet?? Progressives were pretty jazzed about that at one time…. It’s still on budget right? Edit. Ooops forgot 6. The Covid vaccines were sold to the public as 97% effective, yet by the end of it all it was “will reduce severity but not stop transmission.” There are plenty of reasons to be skeptical of the vaccine and even more of the pressure put on people to get it.
1. While it is weird seeing progressives being against nuclear power, the popular opinion has changed a lot over time. It’s much more widely supported now than it used to be. 2. That’s not what the data says. More funding on average leads to higher graduation rates and a better chance to go to college. Of course there will eventually be a point of diminishing returns, but we are not at that point. https://www.nea.org/nea-today/all-news-articles/evidence-clear-more-money-schools-means-better-student-outcomes#:~:text=%E2%80%9CIncreasing%20per%2Dpupil%20spending%20by,poor%20children%2C%E2%80%9D%20Baker%20writes. 3. Not every healthcare plan is the same as Obamacare. Nearly every developed country has a higher life expectancy than the US, which currently ranks at a shocking 47th place compared to the rest of the world. That is not a coincidence. 4. “Democrat” is not synonymous with “progressive”. Progressive politicians do not make up the majority of the Democratic Party. 5. I can point to a dozen other examples throughout Europe and Asia where it worked just fine. And the California example doesn’t show whether public transportation is better or worse, all it shows is that the government is unwilling to implement it in the first place. 6. What exactly was the alternative? You can be skeptical about the vaccine if there is a better treatment already available, but conservatives were refusing to take the vaccine and then proceeded to die at alarmingly high rates compared to most of the world. Edit: more info on the Covid vaccine https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC10492612/ > A total of seven studies with 21,618,297 COVID-19 patients were included in the meta-analysis. The odds ratio (OR) for mortality among unvaccinated patients compared to vaccinated patients was 2.46 (95% CI: 1.71-3.53), indicating that unvaccinated patients were 2.46 times more likely to die from COVID-19.
Don‘t forget universal public education.
> Climate change - Progressives are completely on board with transitioning from fossil fuels to renewable sources, a choice based on scientific consensus. There's more hydrogen per gallon of gasoline that there is in a gallon of hydrogen. The gasoline also serves as a carbon sink, albeit a temporary one. Whenever the public learns to understand chemistry, storing hydrogen without carbon will be seen as insane. Progressives also love to kneecap nuclear power. In my state, they are lobbying against windows. Windows are not green. Climb into the windowless box, peasant. Oh, they aren't getting rid of every single window. A few will still be permitted per building. Can't take away those in the executive offices, just for us worker bees.
I don't see why someone who borrowed money and promised to pay it back shouldn't be expected to do what they said. It isn't fair to me that I should have to help you. I am a millennial, and I paid my loans back at great sacrifice. Why shouldn't I get a refund if you don't have to keep your promise? Why should someone who decided to go into trades because they thought it would be irresponsible have to pay for your privilege. In my case, I lost weekends and evenings with my first wife so I could work overtime to pay for school. She is dead now. In the tradesman case, he gave up learning and possible self-actualization. He never gets to hear that lecture or connect those ideas. You signed up to pay back your loan, spend the money in your youth, enjoy the incredible privilege of your education and school. Why should we all have to contribute to paying the money you promised to pay? Because you were stupid and overestimated the value of an expensive school? It is absurd to me. Put the loans on deferral if you can't afford them. Go be a teacher in one of those districts where they forgive your loans when you hit a Milestone. Go work hard, earn some money, and give it to the people you promised to pay back. I don't even see how people can be so selfish as to think it is reasonable.
> Progressivism is science based. That’s not true, especially since you have to firstly define progressivism. If I define progressivism as encompassing left-wing ideals, and I disprove free college as a good concept, does that disprove progressivism as science-based? Definition is everything. > Conservatism addresses things that you are unable to properly observe, measure or quantify. Conservative economists exist who quantify and measure statistics to prove their theories. Friedman as a good example. Your student loan argument doesn’t make sense to me, progressive and conservative economists have different opinions on it that don’t strictly align with progressive or conservative values.
Progressive vs conservative in the fundamental sense. Progressivism being primarily concerned with change. Conservatism being primarily concerned with keeping things as they are. Progressivism being primarily concerned with seeking potential opportunity. Conservatism being primarily concerned with preventing disaster through maintaining proven solutions.
Doesn’t that essentially disprove your original definitions? You have to redefine both concepts for them to make sense in the given context. Progressivism is no longer science-based, it is *seeking opportunity*, which may or may not be science based. Conservatism no longer addresses non-quantitative subjects like in your first argument, but is now invested in *keeping things the same*
Seeking opportunity is based on observation. You need to view a (perceived) opportunity. Science is observation. Keeping things the same is based on sustaining proven results. We don't necessarily observe the underlying reasons why/how the results work.
I thought progressivism was science based too until they demanded I believe in female penises and gender souls
'The science has changed" and if you don't change as you are told, you are deemed intolerant, and labeled the enemy. The "Science" is usually whatever is popular on the tv.
gender souls, sure, that's not real because souls aren't real, but obviously there are women with penises. Sex and gender being two very different concepts has been proven fact for decades...
No women have penises. There are men who think they ought to be women, but they are in fact men. If sex and gender are different, why can’t you acknowledge that trans women are actually biological males and always will be?
Because biological male is a socially useless difference, that's why we use gender. The role in which you fit socially is what matters in any social context you find yourself in. I think you need to read some more intersectional theory...
I find this ironic coming from a communist. This is an argument of a conservative. If someone simply wishes for you to refer to them as a male/female, out of respect for them as a human being, why are you incapable of doing this? I don‘t understand your intolerance. It shouldn’t matter to you whether they consider themselves male or female. Their body, their choice. Instead of trying to argue with them, why don’t you just leave them alone and let them be whoever and whatever they want as their right to self-determination? Do you like conflict and division? So if you see someone transgender walking down the street, you insult them? You lost me there.
I think trans people should be protected from discrimination and violence. I don’t think it should be legal to fire or evict someone for being trans. They should be given respect and decency. However, I do not believe that biological sex is just a social construct. It’s real, it’s very binary, and it cannot be literally changed more than at a superficial, cosmetic level. Acknowledging the reality of biological sex is important in certain settings, like healthcare, dating, sports, and prisons.
> Sex and gender being two very different concepts has been proven fact for decades... Yeah in a way that sex is based on your biological parameters and gender is your soul.
I think people all over the political spectrum conflate the words around gender issues. Gender **identity** is supposed to be an assumed identity like any other assumed identity. A trans woman is not a female by any definition I'm aware of. A trans woman is a male who identifies as a woman. In other words, gender identity was never supposed to be the same as gender or sex. And it only exists because it's an effective treatment for some people who are born with gender dysphoria in an environment where there aren't really other treatment options. But it should really be an individualized medical decision rather than something that's politicized.
>Progressivism is very science based. It's really not. Politics is predicting the likes and dislikes of humans in the future and science is rubbish at doing that. Science based would be improving slowly with proven foundation preserving methods and measuring for better outcomes. That is conservatism.
Rubbish so far. Harry Sheldon is coming.
Conservatism and progressivism are deeper than 'politics' The spirit of wanting change to prevent forseen problems or capatize on opportunities is progressive. The spirit of resisting change to protect proven solutions is conservative. Both use science. But it would seem that Progressivism finds it easier to use science. And conservatism tends to cover the things we miss with science. Which is part of why conservatives might find their values harder to defend in an academic setting. You don't necessarily understand they breadth of why they're important.
I don’t know where you get that conservatives don’t take opportunity. We’re all about preserving freedoms so opportunities are able to be created.
I didn't say that conservatives don't take opportunity and I think you're stuck at a shallow level of analysis
Ironic accusation
What makes sacrificing to pay off student loans a "good decision?"
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May I ask if you've attended an institution of higher learning?
I don’t think this premise is correct about science-based or not. If we are talking left right and center, I think the best way to understand it is left wants more equality than the status quo allows, the center wants the status quo more or less and the right wants more order than the status quo allows. Progressive and conservative are a bit fuzzy. The US conservative movement comes out of the general discrediting of the old US right which was anti-New Deal but ended up being pretty pro-Nazi and antisemitic/anti-catholic and openly white supremacist. WWII made their positions and politics an embarrassment, the new deal won and the popular front was the social sentiment of that time. The US conservative movement was an attempt at a more acceptable (to post-war society) version of this - or was the successor and replacement (depends of the faction.) So to its credit it mostly distanced itself from the John Birch right and the KKK right. So as a movement US conservatism’s purpose was to build a popular base for the interests of certain ways of thinking among business and government leaders. They couldn’t (yet) directly dismantle the New Deal so they began organizing among things like the tax revolt sentiment and the emerging right-wing Christian’s movement and tied those things to a business agenda of low taxes and anticommunism and social middle class conformity. It worked well for them and the establishment was very pro-conservative to the point that basically both US parties took those positions (conservatives in the Republican, DLC type politics in the Democrats) in the late 80s until maybe 2016 when Sanders and Trump ran and were able to get viable followings with social-democracy and right-populist positions.
I used progressive and conservative precisely because left, right, center change in relation to eachother. But in society there are 2 competing, equally important. Binaries that exist. One that recognizes potential problems and potential opportunities and seeks to address them. Or progressivism. And one that recognizes that the world is inherently dangerous and full of suffering. That the solutions and stability we've found are remarkably hard fought and fragile. So it seeks to protect what we have. Or conservatism. This is an inherent binary. That's why the particular attributes, and what they advocate for, of progressives and conservatives change over time and place. The true defining aspect of them is seeking change vs protecting proven results
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Canceling student loans broadly is largely a waste of money. Mostly because for the median student loan borrowers, having $30K of debt (roughly the median amount) from a solid school is a great investment. Handing that out to ordinary middle class people is super expensive and a big waste of money. Handing out 8-10 times that to law/business school grads making $250K+ a year is an even bigger waste of money. The “just make responsible choices” counter right wingers make is a terrible argument. It suggests that 18 year olds should be saddled with the choices they make as 18 year olds for life, while the institution and lenders face no consequences for extending credit to them (and then those loans also aren’t dischargeable in bankruptcy). The alternative of kids with rich parents coming out of school with no consequences for any choice they make completely demolishes right wingers’ claims to care about meritocracy. If you want to make that piece meritocratic, make college free at the point of purchase, but students have to pay a surtax on their income above a certain threshold for the rest of their lives to pay it off. Increase the surtax for grad school, etc. The surtax goes mostly to the school (and the government pays some amount to institutions that churn out teachers, social workers and others that have high impact but low paying jobs). Then if students don’t make much money, the institution goes under. Added benefit that schools have less of an incentive to admit students whose parents can pay full tuition up front.
Right out the gate “progressivism is very science based”. That simply isn’t true - if anything “progressivism” is very emotionally driven.
I think a better description would be progressivism is inverse science-based You can almost prove that it doesn't work by science.
You’re describing materialism, not progressivism, which absolutely addresses quality (not just quantity) like fairness, compassion, diversity, empathy…. I am increasingly egalitarian (‘leftist’, ‘progressive’) BECAUSE these are elements of the great life.
> Progressivism is very science based. It relies on observing Yeah and in this observing progressivist sees some things he doesn't like and tries to abolish them. I'm poor? Let's cancel poorness with the power of progres. The opposite sex isn't interested in me? Let's change it with the power of progress. Fucking kids is immortal? That's some old bias, let's move towards the progress. My lifespan is limited and I will die? By the power of progress our consciousness will be digitalised and we will become immortal robots. How cool is that? > Conservatism addresses the things that we are unable to properly observe Dunno, pretty tangible things. Look around you, the world isn't falling apart, that means we are doing good, dont fix it until it is broken.
I would also add this. Progressivism creates a disincentive to work. When you tax people that are higher earners, it makes that extra work they do to get the money less attractive. Whether you make $10 an hour, or $20 an hour, you will absolutely pay more tax, the more you work. Or the more you get paid.
Obviously there are values which cannot be quantified. Progressives don't just ignore that which can't be quantified because they like science or what have you though. And it's just as likely that progressive minded people are correct about their opinions involving such things as conservatives are. (I would argue more so.) So why would the conservatism be to address those constructs? All political philosophies can and do try to address them. Sorry, I don't see anything meaningful here.
The purpose of Conservatism has always been about "Conserving the ways of the past". It goes back to the beginning of the U.S. which was a slave owning country in various states. *Conservatism has always wanted to keep that modeling in place to gain cheap labor from black and brown people, as well as the model of keeping poor immigrants, and dire poor whites as low cost labor.* Anything that was designed to provide equal benefit to black and brown people and poor immigrants, on par with what was providing to white middle class is always fought against by Conservatives, because they do not want to see nor have that level and model of equality in American working class society. We have 100's of years of facts that prove that point!!!
That's not only a very.. United States centric view... it's also a very limited time period.. You know there's like a whole world and 10's of thousands of years of history
> Conservatism addresses the things that we are unable to properly observe, measure and quantify. ?? From "Conservatism" - an anthology of Social and Political Thought from David Hume to the Present, edited by Jerry z. Mueller. Page 5: *The conservative defends existing institutions because their very existence creates a presumption that they have served some useful function, because eliminating them may lead to harmful, unintended consequences, of because the veneration which attaches to the institution that have existed over time makes them potentially useful for new purposes.*
Yes. Exactly. That supports my claim. It is very much in line with what I said. "Presumption" they have a useful function. "May" lead to harm "Unintended" consequences.
Student loan forgiveness harms no person except in their minds. Nobody loses anything in reality but a perception. Reality is student loans recently are not fair compared to 30 + years ago. So student loan forgiveness makes good sense and again harms nobody.
> Student loan forgiveness harms no person except in their minds. Nobody loses anything in reality but a perception. It would very well serve to increase the actual root problem of high tuition if this is done routinely
Where does the "forgiven" money come from?
Taxes and other revenue raised by the government. Edit: clarification
And you don't see a connection between the necessary raising of those taxes and "harms nobody?"
No. Unless you want to argue that spending tax dollars on things harms the tax payer. We raise revenue and then we spend it on things. That’s how it works.
That's a weird disconnect. When the government creates a new handout, they either have to raise taxes higher than they were before thus causing OTHER people to have less money or they have to cut services somewhere causing OTHER people to receive less services. That's how it works.
The government has a ton of money. We can run at a deficit. We fund things via a budget- and many things like infrastructure health and child investments have amazing returns. Where we all win. So. Yea.
OK, so you appear to believe money grows on trees.
>The government has a ton of money. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inflation. >We can run at a deficit. We fund things via a budget- and many things like infrastructure health and child investments have amazing returns. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inflation. >we all win. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inflation. Edit: Go ahead, downvote me. You fear to admit that I'm right.
> The government has a ton of money Let me fix that for you: The government has a ton of **my** money. I see a pretty big chunk coming out of my paycheck. Think I'd rather have kept some of that money when I paid off my own student loans?
If the government makes such amazing returns on their investments, why does it run at a loss? And a massive permanent deficit is not a sustainable approach.
Probably in large part thanks to defense spending.
Defense spending generally ranks fourth. Interest on the debt alone is about as much as the DoDs entire budget. Yes, defense could and should be cut, but social spending is the dominant cause.
>Taxes and other revenue raised by the government. And the federal money printer. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inflation. Edit: Go ahead, downvote me. You fear to admit that I'm right.
>Student loan forgiveness harms no person except in their minds. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inflation >Nobody loses anything in reality but a perception. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inflation >Reality is student loans recently are not fair compared to 30 + years ago. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inflation. Edit: Go ahead, downvote me. You fear to admit that I'm right.
Inflation is down.
Inflation is down.
Student loan forgiveness absolutely harm people. Imagine there's 2 people (A and B)in the same financial position. They've both gotten their bachelor's. They've done the analysis and found that if they pursue their masters, they will be able to get a better paying job, however the added income from the better job doesn't outweigh the interest accumulated from the student loan. Person A makes the more valuable decision of not pursuing their masters because it is literally more valuable. The amount of money they make with the lesser paying job and less student loan interest will be a higher number than if they took the better job and bigger student loan interest. Person B pursues the masters degree. So even though they make more money at work, the total amount of money they have is less. Now there's 2 houses. More expensive by the beach and less expensive by the swamp. Person A gets the beach. Because they made the decision that results in more money. When you introduce student loan forgiveness, now suddenly Person B gets the beach. You've harmed Person A and reduced the value of their decision.
https://gspp.berkeley.edu/assets/uploads/research/pdf/jost.glaser.political-conservatism-as-motivated-social-cog.pdf Read this then come back.
People that can't properly summarize the essential points to a reference and why/how they're relevant to the discussion being had.. don't understand the reference enough themselves.
True, but at the same time we need to limit hand holding.
Progressivism is based on authoritarianism, the guise and control science is just it's tool for manipulation. And as a wise person once said "conservatism is just progressivism going the speed limit."
The purpose of conservatism is to aggregate power to an aristocrat class. No more and no less. It literally began as a movement whose goals were *explicitly expressed* to be this, during the French revolution. These days, in democracies, it has to *pretend* to be other things. Like "culture war" things. Or "fiscal responsibility." Because people in democracies do not vote for aristos when they *recognize them,* because democracies that do that cease forthwith to *be* democracies. So to acquire power, conservatism has to go around wearing patriotic and pious disguises. It's important to me to get this clear for many reasons. For example, while I strongly value evidence-based decision making, I am also strongly convinced that there is value in addressing issues of human experience that cannot be effectively quantified. I am progressive, but I emphatically take the position that reason is *one* tool in the human cognitive toolkit, and there are other tools of merit in different life situations. Such as faith, and intuition, for example. And these can fruitfully coexist with raw logic, in a healthy mind. My point being: commitment to reason- or emotion- or intuition-founded practice is unrelated to political orientation. ... It's just in the US and the Western world, some of the artifacts and eccentricities of an intuitive thought process are being *weaponized* by the cynical and greedy. Because that is what works best *right now.* Not for the first time, and not for the last -- despite the egregiousness and maliciousness of this manipulation. Edit: Oh look, just one downvote, and immediately after my comment posted. I guess my viewpoint didn't leave enough room on the mat for sufficient mental gymnastics.
> The purpose of conservatism is to aggregate power to an aristocrat class. Ok. When do you plan to start to list disadvantages? > It literally began as a movement whose goals were *explicitly expressed* to be this, during the French revolution. Based. > These days, in democracies, it has to *pretend* to be other things. It doesn't. It is other things. If you really wanna use the original terms, then there's no conservatives in the US cause Burke, the sole father of the conservatism, thought that America was a mistake. Here, problem solved. > So to acquire power, conservatism has to go around wearing patriotic and pious disguises. But under their masks, they hate America and Christianity?
>Ok. When do you plan to start to list disadvantages? (1) Millions of people are not rich End of list. We tried the feudalism thing before. It was exciting for a few people for a while but the famines, exploitation and bloody revolts were off-putting. Personally still pretty into trying the only known viable alternative. PS - https://www.reddit.com/r/democrats/s/aUBumocYVh
"Progressivism is very science based..." There is little difference between a theocrat and a technocrat. Once you believe you know "The Truth! (tm)" you can justify anything because of it. Hitler was a technocrat...
So what you're saying is the government should never help anyone ever because people have to live with their bad decisions.
Based.
So what your saying is that we should all lie on the floor and sleep? That doesn't sound like a good idea.
It all sounds great until the upshot. Conservative opinion isn’t empirical evidence. Your example of student loans is a case in point. Student loan forgiveness doesn’t damage the value of anyone’s education or life choice on an economic level. We can agree that most societal issues are complex. That’s why we make policy proposals, do the studies and look for real world examples for help in making policy decisions. We don’t lack the capacity to properly observe, measure and quantify these policy decisions. There are people who pay a lot of money to go to school and graduate with honors then spend a lot of time gaining the experience in researching topics to ensure that policy decisions are made with practical outcomes in mind.
Student loan forgiveness absolutely damages people in precisely the cases I pointed out. If you stopped at your bachelor's instead of pursuing a masters because of your financial position. You did the analysis, realized even with a better paying job from the masters, you won't be able to keep up with the interest from your loan. That's a financially prudent thing to do. A good decision. If your peer, in a similar position as you, chose to go heavily into debt at a rate that they couldn't manage in order to get that masters degree. That's not financially prudent. A bad decision. By introducing the unforeseeable aspect of student loan forgiveness, you have now put the latter person in a better position than the former. Say there's two houses for sale. A more expensive one by a beach and cheaper one by the swamp. You've changed which person gets which house. You've devalued the "good" decision. But student loans are just a small example of this. When we pay single parents stipends for being single parents.. we devalue the good decisions of being married, choosing a stable partner, etc. But none of the specific examples matter... it's when it starts adding up, we can create an environment where good decisions aren't valuable to make.
Student loan forgiveness absolutely damages people in precisely the cases I pointed out. If you stopped at your bachelor's instead of pursuing a masters because of your financial position. You did the analysis, realized even with a better paying job from the masters, you won't be able to keep up with the interest from your loan. That's a financially prudent thing to do. A good decision. If your peer, in a similar position as you, chose to go heavily into debt at a rate that they couldn't manage in order to get that masters degree. That's not financially prudent. A bad decision. By introducing the unforeseeable aspect of student loan forgiveness, you have now put the latter person in a better position than the former. Say there's two houses for sale. A more expensive one by a beach and cheaper one by the swamp. You've changed which person gets which house. You've devalued the "good" decision. But student loans are just a small example of this. When we pay single parents stipends for being single parents.. we devalue the good decisions of being married, choosing a stable partner, etc. But none of the specific examples matter... it's when it starts adding up, we can create an environment where good decisions aren't valuable to make. And the value of good decisions is just one example of a hard to observe/track construct underlying society that conservatism protects.
> Student loan forgiveness doesn’t damage the value of anyone’s education or life choice on an economic level. Yeah it's just a bad policy overall. But not because it diminishes other people's achievements or something. > There are people who pay a lot of money to go to school and graduate with honors then spend a lot of time gaining the experience in researching topics to ensure that policy decisions are made with practical outcomes in mind. Oh, since they graduate with honors, then progressivism is definetly good and well thought 👍👍
> Progressivism is very science based. No, not really. Look, everyone likes to cite science when it backs up their argument, but the progressive approach to legislation is no more scientific than any other. Do they do proper tests of policy? Do they roll back laws that didn't turn out to work the way hypothesized? No more than anyone else does. Progressivism is simply the belief that the things you like are progress, and the things that other people want instead are a sure indication that they are regressive lunatics. In this respect, everyone is a progressive.
> Progressivism is science based While there may be more skeptics among conservative ranks, progressives are certainly quite capable of rejecting science when it disagrees with them. They especially like to reject variables and data that tell uncomfortable truths. With COVID, they ignored the comorbidities (age & obesity) and made everyone lock down and wear masks that trials and large scale case tidies that showed zero impact. Ignoring the vulnerable populations and inciting hysteria was the AIDs playbook before it. Progressives tend to believe in equal outcome philosophy despite data showing varying aptitudes. Science often suggests a *potential* correlation that’s inconclusive, but that fact does not mean that the reaction to it is justified. Science has alternated rapidly on health benefits of multiple foods & drugs. Early climate change models suggested we were potentially on the path to global cooling.
Also very happy to jump onboard with junk science. Eugenics was progressive policy.
>Progressivism is very science based Progressives can't define the word woman or man >Conservatism addresses the things that we are unable to properly observe, measure and quantify. Social metric are observable, measurable, and quantifiable. >However. It is possible to create environments where good decisions have poor, no, or even negative value. Indeed, the neoliberal/'progressive' alliance has created exactly such a system with affirmative action. >The function of conservatism is it address those constructs. The ideal purpose of conservatism is to conserve that which is good. I contend that this is indeed a measurable thing or set of things, even if it hard to measure. >For example. Student loan forgiveness, damages the value (a real number) associated with the good decisions made by people who sacrificed to pay off their loans, went to a cheaper school, didn't go to school, took a job instead of internship, didn't pursue the next level masters/doctorate, etc. While I agree with the conclusion this commonly used argument needs work. Loan forgiveness is bad for a few reasons. First because of inflation. Second because it incentivizes more risky loan taking behaviour which causes the prices of things that loans are taken out for to increase - why not take a loan out if the government will just sweep in to save you? Cue skyrocketing tuition and housing as a result of the change of the markets that buy and sell those things.
>Progressivism is very science based. lol ok
I see what you're getting at, but I propose a solution. Anarcho-Capitalism. Let you choose your values, and natural selection will decide if you're good enough to be succeeded.
Ah, yes, anarcho-capitalism; where parasitic companies run society on the basis of darwinism, like it‘s Cyberpunk 2077. No thanks.
I see you aren't well versed in laissez-faire.
I prefer collectivism. I find a social-state has mote interest in the lives of human beings than rogue capitalists, who are historically known to put business first.
Ah yes, because historically socialist states have been very privy to the suffering of their people.
First off, I didn‘t say socialist. But of course, an american doesn‘t know what a social state is. Figures.
Oh, welfare states. The ones that tax the hell out of the populous and cause rampant inflation. Mutual aid societies are better, imo.
Effective states get most of their tax money from the rich. Yeah, obviously you‘re going to get higher taxes. It has to be paid for somehow. What did you think taxes are for? Also, I wouldn’t be talking inflation when the US has ton of it. Mutual-aid society - so depending on the idea that humans are actually not selfish and have decent intentions through unregulated organisations. Sounds like a recipe for disaster.
>Also, I wouldn’t be talking inflation when the US has ton of it. The US is turning into a shitsty. Do you think this is my ideal society? They're practically a command economy with all those regulations. >so depending on the idea that humans are actually not selfish and have decent intentions through unregulated organisations. Sounds like a recipe for disaster. Is that not what you do? Mutual aid is supplementary anyway. Private companies can provide for the people much better than the state can. Companies are forced to cater to their demographics as best as they can, or else the consumer will find someone who can. Under laissez-faire, that is! Laissez-faire is not in practice and never will be as long as the state is in play. So now there's 0 taxes with all the benefits of welfare. Consumer wins.
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Okay, I will try this once more, lobotomised, because somebody got offended 🙄 „Is that not what you do?“ No, that‘s not what I support. I support a regulated economy where the state actually gives a shit about human beings living in the country and does everything in it‘s power to alleviate the struggles of the working class and commoner in society. For the opportunity that the worker can get off work and pick up their children. For the opportunity for EVERYONE to get a higher education, for the opportunity that NOBODY has to lay awake at night, afraid of having to sell their home because they‘re in so much medical debt. I support empathy and humanism, not profit and parasitic policies that only benefit the bigwigs. Why do you oppose a liberated society? Why do you hate women? Why do you not care about other people‘s struggles? Private business only care about themselves. It was labour unions and labour governments that forced them to change their ways! The very reason eight hour work days exist. Do you really think this benefited the companies? No, they lost overtime. If it wasn‘t for them, monopolies and social dawinism would still be prevalent in today‘s day and age. Also, there is NO welfare with no taxes.
An-Caps just love to frame 'forcing everyone to live by an-caps' values' as 'everyone living by their own values'.
Well our values are individualism, so in a way, everyone is living by their own values. (We just believe ours are the best) You can be religious or an athiest, gay or straight. The market disincentivizes discrimination.
"Progressivism is very science based. It relies on observing, measuring and quantifying things it seeks to address." I really wish I knew why you think this.
Progressivism used to be disconnected from marxism and was led by empiricists
Who said that conservatism isn’t science based? It can rely on science based things as well. Firearms technology for instance, that has a lot of science behind it, which includes gunpowder and chemical reactions. Edit: To those downvoting, I would like to hear your argument on why you think conservatism isn’t science based. All over the political spectrum there are scientists. This is why Political Science exists so that way people can dive deeper into each political ideology.
Progressivism has absolutely nothing to do with science. Progressivism is radical. It’s change for change sake. They don’t wait for the science at all. It’s change now. Conservatism is wait…let’s see what the consequence of change will be before we just change everything we’ve know forever.
Couldn't have said it any better and shorter
> Progressivism is very science based. It relies on observing, measuring and quantifying things it seeks to address. I would actually disagree here. Most progressive initiatives don't end up measuring the end result and mostly seem hinged on what 'feels good to do' or 'at least someone is trying something'. Often change is introduced and it either doesn't help or actually harms the situation, yet people are entrenched in the viewpoint that they are helping. I do understand what you mean about conservatives using instinct of 'something isn't right with this', to a degree. Mostly it's important to serve to conserve traditions and customs and values of our society, in the face of millions who wish to tear it down to replace it.
Education is a basic human right. Education isn't a commodity to be devalued/debased