• 2 Posts
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Joined 2 years ago
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Cake day: July 9th, 2023

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  • For sure, left wing are most of what I see here, except for trolls and bots

    If I needed a label, probably Progressive. I liked Biden’s platform and agreed we needed to try a centrist like him to see if it was possible to start working together again. I also believed he did at least as well as anyone could, and if his legacy hadn’t been torn to bits by turnip would have positioned the US well for decades to come. He could have shifted that Overton window, sowed the seeds that a more Progressive candidate could reap.

    But if I try to articulate a common theme for my current beliefs, it is to invest in the future. I’m a strong believer in a good education for all as the foundation of our future. I’m inspired by the possibilities of science and technology. We need people to have the opportunity to strive, improve, and to dare, knowing we will catch them if they fall

    Earlier in life I thought I was much more Conservative but the twisted thing is I now say the same things from a very different perspective.

    • I’m a strong believer in family values: every family member deserves equal respect and human rights, every new parent deserves quality time with a new child without regard for work, every child deserves the best healthcare without regard for their parents income, every child deserves a top notch education and the resources to succeed at it, every elderly or disabled person deserves to have their needs met and continue a decent life.
    • I believe in innovation and pulling yourself up by your bootstraps. A solid education for all allows each person the opportunity to achieve their potential. A comprehensive safety net lets each person reach for the stars without fear, lets them dare to fail without perishing, allows them to learn from a failure and try again.
    • I believe in self-sufficiency and independence. Every person deserves a basic income to survive without burdening anyone else. Every person needs healthcare sufficient to recover without losing their independence, their savings, or their loved ones. People who choose city life should be able to walk out their door with only what they carry, and get anywhere. Comprehensive well maintained infrastructure is the ultimate independence
    • I believe in fiscal responsibility. Every investment to look toward the future, build a better society, a better environment, a better humanity
    • I believe in capitalism. Competition is enabled by a legal framework facilitating fairness, equal opportunity, transparency. Capitalism maximizes potential in a free market regulated by politics for the long term benefit of the voter/consumer


  • No, the goal of capitalism is to use a profit goal to harness the human base emotions of greed and lust for power. It has no other goal, no right or wrong, but is merely a tool. It should be a tool. Capitalism serves merely short term profit.

    Government creates the market, issues regulations to establish competition, fairness, transparency, contracts, currency, legal frameworks. Government expects to last longer than a contemporary CEO: is it too much to ask that they regulate the market with a long term perspective? Government is elected by the voters: is it too much to ask that they regulate the market for the good of those voters whom they desire to re-elect them ?

    Our system of checks and balances seeks to harness similar base emotions to prevent fascism and other abuses of authority by giving each politician a realm where they wield the most power. No matter how unscrupulous a politician.their lust for power drives them to placate voters sufficiently to get re-elected, drives them to limit the ther branches of government from encroaching on their prerogative. No matter how egocentric a politician, no matter how much he holds himself above others and above the law, he is driven to prevent others from cheating more than himself. How craven and spineless must you be that even this isn’t enough to make the power hungry stand up for their own greed? Isn’t enough for the corruptible to use the force of law to bring down the other corrupted?

    But somehow capitalism bought government. The most egocentric bowed to a personality cult. The power hungry found it easier to manipulate voters than to placate them. The corruptible commit their grift in public


  • I also hope Harvard does the right thing but they’re being shaken down for a lot of money. Doing the right thing is not financially prudent.

    My personal stake is the hit to Children’s Hospital. My kid survived cancer, where federal funding supported a long term study by Harvard that reversed the odds of surviveability . Over more than a decade of improvements to care, the odds went from 90% fatality to 90% survival. We can not afford to lose progress like this over some old man’s spite and vanity