End of Liberalism/Return of Fascism

[mrstickball]

scottie said:

 

First, thanks for actually responding properly, you won't get very far by simply insulting people who disagree with you.

Out of curiousity, where do you think my country is? I find it amusing that you don't know which country I live in, and yet you claim that I do not know anything about politics in countries other than this one, unknown country. I also love that you claim my experience and knowledge is all based in the current day. If anything, the opposite criticism could be made of me. I read up on current politics because I know I should, I read up on the politics and economics of the 1900s-1970s because it interests me.

 

I provided several examples to prove my points;

 

Scott Walker (and there are plenty of other examples, such as Thatcher, to use an example that is neither from my country nor the present day, or John Howard, who is from my country and approximately the present day) and their union busting activities. All Right wing without a shadow of a doubt, all acting in defiance of the 'small government' concept in order to concentrate wealth in the hands of the already wealthy. I would also like to point out that after Howard was voted out of office, the Labor party (left wing) overturned John Howards ban on collective bargaining.

Of course, you could study the actual issue of union-busting in America. Wisconsin was broke. They had no money to continue to pay the union salaries that had been forced on the cities and state governments. We have the same thing going on in Ohio. We tried to break up the unions, and it failed. Now we're losing teachers, firefighters and cops every day, because unions would rather see people let go than re-negotiate contracts. Also, its not just a right-wing republican thing. We've had very left-leaning legislatures like Massachusettes do the same thing and break up their public unions.

 

You can also look at the tax cuts that Bush brought in, or the GST that Howard brought in as examples of ways the right wing shift the tax burden to the poor.

Except the fact that the total burden of taxes in America for the top 1% is higher today than at any point in the past 60 years.

I also used the example of Iceland (left wing) not giving bailouts, and the Democrats (and eventually Republicans) (both right wing, to varying degrees) giving bailouts.

You claim that there are left wing governments that are "all about" supporting their friends in big business. name some, as many as you can. I can't respond to your experience, if I don't even know what countries you are refering to.

The issue with both of your arguments are what actually make up a left-wing or right-wing government. Could you even empircally give a list of actual left-wing governments?