Got into it with a couple of Bernie Bros over the lies the Bernie Bro online media are spreading about what Pete Buttigieg said about the disaffection of both Bernie Sanders supporters and Trump supporters. One of the things that startled me most about the argument was that the Bernie Bros seemed to think that my statements in favor of radical equality were unsound, perhaps proving something I've come to believe, that a lot of those "leftists" have a lot more in common with the fascist right through their materialist scientism.
In the course of the argument I said I was to the left of Sanders to the skepticism, perhaps derision of the Bros. Well, I gave them a sample which I would guess even they thought was going too far, it shut them up so I thought I'd give it here, with some important additions in square brackets. From the way they dropped it, I think I went way too far for them.
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Are you asking me what my wildest dreams are?
I do believe all people are endowed with equality, beyond some kind of economic utilitarian scheme of valuation, that is a position to the left of Bernie Sanders.
I believe that all essential services, including to education, medical care, fire, medical emergency and police protection, are part of that right.
I would abolish all economic inequality because it is inevitably destructive of equality.
I would abolish destitution entirely through a guaranteed income and guaranteed adquate housing to be administered on a local level with regulations to prevent discrimination.
I would require that cooperation and equality be instilled through education and, more importantly, the media and that lessons in seeing through conjobs and seeing through the way the media inculcates amoral depravity would be part of that, as well.
[I'd ban TV ads, which would go far in cutting down on the lies, conjobs, depravity. I'd limit TV and radio and online media in elections to flat, policy based statements made by the candidate in the candidates voice without PR tactics. I can't think of anything other than the public funding of campaigns that would clean up our politics more effectively.]
I would tax all of the elite private institutions for the support of, for example, public education pre-school through PhD,
I think the unregulaged mass media is a danger to egalitarian democracy and everything good, up to and including life itself. I would force the mass media to serve the interests of government of, by and for The People instead of the oligarchs and the owners or they would not be allowed to broadcast or be distributed on cable or the internet.
I would obliterate social media platforms that behave like Facebook in endangering democracy. [I would do that as evidence comes in to demonstrate that danger to democracy.]
I would leave it to civil action to regulate the relatively harmless, by comparison, print media through enabling those it lies about to sue for slander and libel as was possible before things started to really go to hell in 1964 with the Sullivan Decision.
Though in some cases of provable harm, such as the Turner Diaries, I would favor provisions to ban its distribution and ownership, altogether. The rights of the victims of "free speech- free press" are entirely higher than the rights of words and media corporations.
If you want I can go on.
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I think any left that isn't based in the belief that God endowed all of us with equal rights will, almost inevitably, turn into government controlled by thugs. Those endowed rights aren't enumerated in the traditional. "classical liberal" way, in expression, most of all there is an equal right to seek and tell the truth, that you will know the truth and that will make you free is a huge part of it. I do not believe there is any right to lie to deceive, to con and cheat. Any "equal right" to do those things will get you straight into a hell of inequality, what we live in more with ever passing day. I believe that we are endowed with the right to do to others what we would have them do to us (and the right to be treated along those lines). I do not believe we are endowed with a right to oppress and cheat and hurt others in our own self-interest. "Self-interest" the highest ersatz virtue of neo-liberalism, "classical-liberalism" is something that you can't reliably base democracy in.
I think Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez might understand what I'm saying here better than the old Marxist would. I've read some of what she's written, I think as a Woman Of Color, as a Christian of the kind who takes what Jesus said seriously, she'd get it. I think AOC is to the left of Bernie if you want to put it in those terms. Egalitarian democracy is the farthest to the left you're going to find. Democratic socialism is a poor substitute.
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