Reaching Out Across the Aisle

[Nevix]

I also feel that Christian values are fundamentally incompatible with capitalism, which by its very nature empowers the powerful and stomps on the meek.

"Capitalism" is freedom to buy, sell, and create as you want/need to, with the only restrictions needed being those prohibiting monopolies, worker abuse, and other such abuses of people.

It is not the free market itself that centers power, but the lack of enforcement of antitrust laws, and government regulations that choke off smaller businesses.

Capitalism is good as long as you arbitrarily declare the bad parts of capitalism to not be capitalism. Antitrust laws are by nature anti-free market as they represent restrictions on the market. Trusts and other forms of monopolies are the natural end state of the free market as when the economy is a competition eventually someone will be the undisputed champion.

Communism and socialism stifle freedom, giving people no choice but to obey the state.

That's a discription of authoritarianism, not communism or socialism. While there are authoritarian versions of both, like Stalinism, it is not inherent to the ideology. Additionally capitalism has a long history of propping up authoritarian regimes, not only have numerous south American democracies been overthrown by the demands of fruit corporations, but many american capitalists, most notably Henry Ford, where huge fans of the Nazis.

Cronyism (typically misnamed as "Crony Capitalism") has enough control and interference to undermine the free marker aspects, due to always having people who gain advantages because they're connected.

A wide variety of other systems are just variations on a free market system, with varying degrees of limited regulation and control.

Being able to buy a law is an example of the free market, not a perversion of it.

Free markets are the most compatible with Christianity.

Free markets are deeply incompatible with Christianity as they inherently advantage the followers of Mammon, drag down the the followers of Christ, and build a level of hypocrisy that wod put the pharisees to shame as you get alleged men of God squeezing their parishioners for money for a second private jet.

I forget if I have specifically said this here:

A Free Market system NEEDS the checks of Anti-Trust and anti worker abuse laws to prevent the exact abuses you highlight.

If the Free Market can only be made to work by restricting it, then by definition it does not work.

It is also OUR responsibility to make sure that televangelists aren't conmen enriching themselves first, or following the doctrine of the world instead of the Word of God.

Televangelists are almost universally profits of Mammon basking in wealth as they back forces, like Reagan, that steal from the poor to give to the rich.

Communism and socialism ARE authoritarian, because there is no way to implement either system without using government force and hard line authoritarianism. They CAN'T work outside of theory because they ignore human nature.

While not pure socialism a number of countries have achieved great success in ensuring both prosperity and personal liberty through mixed economies where in major industries, though not the whole of the economy, are owned by the government and the benefits are spread to the people rather than horded by the wealthy.

Both communism and socialism have ALWAYS resulted in shortages, suffering, and death, to the tune of over 100 million. Both also either corrupt or oppress the religious/churches.

And right now the failure of capitalism to respond to a crisis is causing shortages, suffering, and death with said proponents of capitalism opposing measures that would ease the suffering and encouraging people to die for the sake of the economy. And honestly I have never seen a system that corrupts the church so thoroughly as capitalism.

The "Free Market", AKA: Freedom (With the aforementioned limitations against monopolies and abuses) is the best of all the bad options, and is the only system that has consistently raised the standard of living over the years.

The highest standards of living in the world are under Nordic countries that put heavy restrictions on the market and have major industries owned by the government. Which indicates that a mixed economy favoring

Last note: I am a Christian, but I am a non denominational non trinitarian Christian.

I'll be honest, I personally cannot consider you a Christian as all branches of Christianity with an unbroken lineage to Christ are descended from the council of Nicaea which formally established the Trinity as a core part of Christianity.

1: You're getting hung up on definitions of "Free Market" being "ABSOLUTELY NO RESTRICTIONS!", when I have repeatedly stated that a free market system needs and works better with reasonable antitrust/anti worker abuse restrictions.

2: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tzEPKrHalaY&vl=en

(Which holds true for many Nordic countries. They get billed as socialist but are free market with large social programs.)

3: https://www.amazon.com/One-God-Lord-Rec ... 0962897140
Some heavy reading for you.

[BridgeConsoleMasher]

Geez, did you go to a south Jersey school? Because exchange concussion for broken arm and it sounds like me in school.

(Snip)

So in summation. I tend to agree with you. The system needs to be reworked before more funding is applied.

I went to a western Pennsylvania school. So not far from New Jersey.

Personally, I think School Vouchers are the best option.

Let people CHOOSE which school their child goes to, and force schools that parents pull their children from either improve or close.

Is this an appropriate measure for an essentially public good though? Don't schools have capacity problems as is, or do you expect the school system to follow a normal path of urbanization?

Our current system is broken.

More schools can be built following the successful model with the demand (provided they aren't blocked politically).

Throwing money at the current public schools hasn't worked for decades, and enforcing accountability directly on the current schools is being resisted to a ridiculous degree.

What's the successful model?

[Fuzzy Necromancer]

Okay. We've both put in good faith efforts. We've talked and listened.

Nevix, I am going to make an educated guess about why you've been stabbed in the hand so many times, why you get blocked or banned or canceled for being conservative. I don't speak for all leftists or Democrats in this respect, and I am attempting to not get personal, but I'm giving it a shot.

It is probably because, directly and/or indirectly, they are harmed by the policies you support.

Me and people I care about are harmed by right-wing policies. Your energy policies contaminate our water and make natural disasters worse. Your religious freedom bills allow healthcare providers to deny us care. The judges that your party appoints to the supreme court will try to take away our right to marry the people we love, and have already ruled that we can be fired from our jobs and evicted from our houses for not being cishet. Your economic policies will stop us from getting raises, make it easier for employers to discard us and pay us less than our work is worth, put our lives at risk because safety measures reduce their profit margins, make it harder for us to organize and strike for better conditions, and generally impede our efforts to move from utterly desperate poverty to a more stable, comfortable kind of poverty.

This is just the open, legal policy.

On a more personal note, however exemplary your conduct may be, we have spent the last four years being terrorized by this president's supporters. We've been called slurs online and from the windows of passing cars. We've listened to an endless refrain of "fuck your feelings". We've gotten death threats. We've been told we don't belong in this country anymore. We've had white nationalist supporters of him beating us, stabbing us, and shooting us. And you work to free and empower these people so they can try to kill again.

I'm not even going to get into what the president, personally, has done and said.

So, I appreciate the effort. It was worth a shot. But I don't think it's any good. I don't think any amount of effort on your part, short of changing political ideology and voting behavior, can bridge this gap. I say this, without anger, judgement, or any intended insult, but whenever you get your way politically, it will make life worse for me and the people I care about.

For what it's worth, I wish you drinkable water, free healthcare, and legal protections in employment. We want that for everyone.

I really hope you don't take this as a personal insult or a betrayal of trust, but I'll also understand if you have difficulty taking it any other way.

The rest of y'all can keep using this thread, but I don't think there's any point in me trying anymore.

This. Seriously, all most of them do with their freedom is to try to take ours away.

If conservative environmental policy is so bad, then why was the U.S. the ONLY country to meet the Paris Accord standards, even without being a member of said accords?

If conservative monetary policy is so bad, then why did the economy boom when the Trump tax cuts and regulatory reform were put in place, and why did the GDP grow by 33% recently even while the coronavirus is disrupting some areas?

Why did wages rise under those same economic policies?

Why the obsession with gay marriage, which allows atheist activists to attack the religious, when even the most die hard conservatives were coming around to Civil Unions?

And on the civility in discourse outside of me front?

Well... there's that nerve that made me write the second post of this thread being hit hard.

So:

HAVE YOU EVEN SEEN THE PEOPLE CALLING FOR FORMING MOBS IF MEMBERS OF THE TRUMP ADMINISTRATION ARE SEEN IN PUBLIC?

And how about the targeting of Trump supporters during the 2016 campaign being targeted for harassment until they get antagonized enough to lash out, then only having the few seconds of the lashing out played without the harassment that precedes it?

STEVE SCALISE. Targeted and almost killed.

The LITERAL KILLING OF A TRUMP SUPPORTER IN A TARGETED ATTACK.

Carter Page's persecution on false grounds:
https://youtu.be/qODProeRQ4c

Bill Clinton being held up as a leading light of the left.



This is exactly what happens all too often.

No matter what I say (no matter what conservatives/republicans/independents say), I (we) get the same litany of condemnation, and then ignored, dismissed, and often insulted to boot.

Any success it attributed to the left, and all failures get attributed to the right.



Edited to remove some of the vitriolic bitterness, and to keep it to regular bitterness.

How in Hecate's name does same sex marriage allow atheists to attack the religious? Me getting married to my sweetheart will not threaten the integrity of Christianity or Christian people in any way.

The Paris Accords are, at best, a token gesture towards the problem of climate change and massive pollution. Conservative policies are responsible for areas of my home state where tap water is flammable. Liberal policy is also responsible for that pollution, but they want slightly less of it, so I grudgingly support them.

I can't speak for all Leftists, but I certainly don't see Bill Clinton as a leading light. If you want to have a go at him you are welcome to it.

I haven't heard about Steve Scalise and I will go to look that up.

I still maintain what I said before. Attempts were made, but as I suspected, this won't go anywhere. I just hope you don't think this was another stab. I was really, truly trying to connect in good faith, but we're just too far apart.

[Draco Dracul]

1: You're getting hung up on definitions of "Free Market" being "ABSOLUTELY NO RESTRICTIONS!", when I have repeatedly stated that a free market system needs and works better with reasonable antitrust/anti worker abuse restrictions.

And I'm arguing that not only what you're describing has ceased to be a free market, and instead a mixed market economy, but that you're fundamentally admitting that a free market economy cannot work because it's only able to work when it is shackled. Additionally we can see that 40 years of removing the market's shackles has resulted in a massive increase in income inequality and falling living standards.

2: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tzEPKrHalaY&vl=en

(Which holds true for many Nordic countries. They get billed as socialist but are free market with large social programs.)

That's what's known as a mixed economy.

3: https://www.amazon.com/One-God-Lord-Rec ... 0962897140
Some heavy reading for you.

When you toss out a corner stone of a religion, what you have left is a separate religion. I believe you worship the same God that I do, much like Jews and Muslims do, but you are no more a Christian than they are.

[BridgeConsoleMasher]

I think the center piece of Nevix's argument is "you lefties that think that Norway just gives everything away free of charge so that you don't have to work have another thing coming."

[Draco Dracul]

I think the center piece of Nevix's argument is "you lefties that think that Norway just gives everything away free of charge so that you don't have to work have another thing coming."

Which has very little to do with whether it is a free market or not. Historically most command economies make everyone work.

[BridgeConsoleMasher]

I think the center piece of Nevix's argument is "you lefties that think that Norway just gives everything away free of charge so that you don't have to work have another thing coming."

Which has very little to do with whether it is a free market or not. Historically most command economies make everyone work.

It's something I see often where people try to drag Sanders supporters under the notion that people think that the corporations pay for everything in Norway.

[Nevix]

1: You're getting hung up on definitions of "Free Market" being "ABSOLUTELY NO RESTRICTIONS!", when I have repeatedly stated that a free market system needs and works better with reasonable antitrust/anti worker abuse restrictions.

And I'm arguing that not only what you're describing has ceased to be a free market, and instead a mixed market economy, but that you're fundamentally admitting that a free market economy cannot work because it's only able to work when it is shackled. Additionally we can see that 40 years of removing the market's shackles has resulted in a massive increase in income inequality and falling living standards.

2: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tzEPKrHalaY&vl=en

(Which holds true for many Nordic countries. They get billed as socialist but are free market with large social programs.)

That's what's known as a mixed economy.

3: https://www.amazon.com/One-God-Lord-Rec ... 0962897140
Some heavy reading for you.

When you toss out a corner stone of a religion, what you have left is a separate religion. I believe you worship the same God that I do, much like Jews and Muslims do, but you are no more a Christian than they are.

1 (& 2): Income inequality is meaningless in the presence of Class Mobility.

As long as you have the ability to move up the economic ladder, or fall down if you make mistakes, the divide in wealth totals doesn't matter.

When income inequality matters is when class mobility is low.

Class mobility is at its lowest in socialist/communist/crony economies.

And a "Mixed economy" is another way of saying "We're not willing to admit that freedom (and the free market) works".

Last of all on this subject:

The Free Market works with a few specific restrictions.

Socialism and communism have ALWAYS failed when implemented.

The Nordic countries are NOT socialist or communist, and are often as free or MORE free than the U.S., regardless of social policies.


3: The argument in the book I linked is that the Trinity is a false doctrine brought on by misinterpretation of the Bible, and that Jesus is the Son of God, but not God.

A cornerstone of belief can be false, if arrived at by misinterpretation of scripture.

[Nevix]

How in Hecate's name does same sex marriage allow atheists to attack the religious? Me getting married to my sweetheart will not threaten the integrity of Christianity or Christian people in any way.

The Paris Accords are, at best, a token gesture towards the problem of climate change and massive pollution. Conservative policies are responsible for areas of my home state where tap water is flammable. Liberal policy is also responsible for that pollution, but they want slightly less of it, so I grudgingly support them.

I can't speak for all Leftists, but I certainly don't see Bill Clinton as a leading light. If you want to have a go at him you are welcome to it.

I haven't heard about Steve Scalise and I will go to look that up.

I still maintain what I said before. Attempts were made, but as I suspected, this won't go anywhere. I just hope you don't think this was another stab. I was really, truly trying to connect in good faith, but we're just too far apart.

It is not the homosexual rights activists who do the attacking, but the atheist/anti religion activists who use homosexual rights legislation as a wedge to change church doctrine.

The bakery that was sued for not catering a wedding for prior homosexual customers are a prime example of this, because the refusal was of CATERING the wedding, not selling a cake in the first place (of which the couple had bought cakes on prior occasions), which resulted in the first lawsuit.

There have been at least 2 more obviously targeted lawsuits against the same bakery by people who are doing a similar thing of deliberately pushing against the owner's beliefs and demanding a transgender reveal cake, and I forget the third cake demanded.

This, in a city where there's probably dozens of other bakeries who would provide the cake with no fuss.



Even if the Paris Accords are a token gesture for most, the U.S. actually meeting the standards WITHOUT being in them, while nations who ARE in them fail to meet those standards, is still significant.

"Flammable water" is actually caused by natural gas in the ground water, which has been happening for decades before fracking became common.

There is also no middle ground on environmental debate. Either you're 1,000,000% on board with the Democrat/Liberal plan, or you're hitlersatan von onceler, according to the activists/pundits/etc.

So any plans to use the current sources of power while developing cleaner sources are ignored in favor of "PASS THIS NOW OR WE'LL DIE IN A DECADE!" (Again.)

We've had predictions of death and destruction and apocalypse in 10 years, every 10 years, for over 50 years running.

Global Cooling in the 60s and 70s. Global Warming in the 80s and 90s. "Climate Change" in the 00s and 10s.

Hell... let me type the 2nd verse lyrics of the environmental doom song I had to learn in 4th Grade... over 25 years ago:

"You leave your engine running,
while shopping for a snack,
and soon you'll need to wear a mask,
when the green air turns to black!


Oh, man. I've got the green blues!"

Oh, and if you dig a bit, you'll find that current pollution levels are at the same level as the 90s.



And yes. Of course I want to have a clean environment, and protections from pollution/environmental destruction.

The lie is that conservatives don't care about the environment. Tied to that lie is how often it's ignored that an expanding economy gives people extra capital to spend on environmental cleanup.




YOU don't hold Bill Clinton up, but there are a lot of leaders and pundits who still turn to him as a great authority of some kind.



The last part of this reply I want to put in a different post.

[Nevix]

I still maintain what I said before. Attempts were made, but as I suspected, this won't go anywhere. I just hope you don't think this was another stab. I was really, truly trying to connect in good faith, but we're just too far apart.

*Sighs.*

The result feels the same, whether it's deliberate or not.

I can make my points until I'm blue in the face, but they're met with the same dismissals I've heard so many times before.

Not consideration of my points, or an analysis of the policies I champion after about 22 years of being politically aware, but a blanket dismissal.



You HAVE been quite civil here, Fuzzy Necromancer, and I do appreciate that.



We're both people who want to make the world a better place.

We disagree on how.


I just don't know how to even approach a middle ground when the policies I champion are dismissed out of hand so often.