Quote:
Originally Posted by blankall
Left wing philosophy relies on people being good and doing what's right. It doesn't really have a mechanism to desk with people taking advantage of the system. It applies to welfare, immigration, social services, etc...
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I would argue that if anything the exact opposite is true.
I'm going to paint a couple of exaggerated pictures to make the point clear.
Right wing philosophy assumes that people are generally good enough that everyone in the society that really needs and deserves help will get help, simply because so many people are Good Christians or equivalent. Right wing politicians generally promote carte blance style rights for the police and government agencies and opposes oversight of such institutions, with the ridiculously naïve assumption that they will not abuse or misuse those powers. (Despite the mountains of proof that people absolutely always will abuse their power over other people if there is no oversight.) They oppose inspections and oversight committees because they assume they'll just get in the way of honest business and people just trying to do their jobs. They don't want to fund councelors and guides because people have parents to do that stuff, and anyway normal people are perfectly capable of thinking for themselves. All this is to me extremely naïve.
Left wing philosophy assumes that you can't trust people to take care of anything that's not written down, be it a road, a river, a sick child, a homeless person... Anything. Every single thing needs to be a law, and anything that is not a law will be ignored by people. Every right a person has needs to be written down because otherwise people will be horrible to other people. Left wing philosophy also strongly believes that just writing something down as a law is not enough, that there is a constant need for oversight committees and independent inspectors to keep a check on people.
Left wing philosophy is also highly cynical about welfare. Essentially, welfare will always be abused to some extent so there's really no point in trying to stop it. It's like trying to stop politicians from lying. Oh, and the left wing is constantly fact-checking everyone who speaks in public, because the assumption is that everybody lies. The right wing is much less interested in fact-checking.
Trying to find welfare abusers is generally not cost-effective, because either there are so many "abusers" that you can't really blame anyone, or so few that the cost of oversight is more than the money potentially saved. The left wing philosophy also generally tends to assume that some people will just never get a job, period. The easiest and most cost-effective way to keep those people out of the way is to just give them enough money that they'll stay home smoking pot (which should be legalized because people are smoking it anyway) and playing video games. Also, left wing social policies tend not to be based on morals, but sociological studies. In other words, they're inherently calculating and immoral, unlike the right wing approach which is often mostly based on morals.
In general, left wing philosophy tends to assume that there's not really a huge difference between people. We're all generally kind of lazy, kind of selfish, prone to break or ignore laws we don't like etc etc. If someone gets a lot of money and power, they probably got it by abusing others and so they're kind of suspicious people. As a result, left wingers are much more prone to be suspicious of authority figures. Yeah, and the left wing also things people need a whole bunch of guidance all the time because they're clueless idiots that panic easily, and that people need to be sheltered with trigger warnings.
Right wing philosophy tends to assume that most people can handle themselves and guidance is only needed for "special" people.
Left wing idols tend to by cynical, sceptical, foulmouthed and even antisocial figures, living unhealthy lives and declaring everyone an a-hole. Stand-up comedians, rock stars, directors of arthouse films about child abuse etc.
Right wing idols tend to be clean-cut, idealistic, fighting for or at least representing the best moral values or greatest achievements of our society, preaching national exceptionalism and so on. Athletes, soldiers, CEO's...
Now, while both views here are obviously caricatures of a really wide spectrum of ideas, I would still argue that if you have to make an argument about which side is the cynical side and which side is the naïve side, IMO it's the right wing that is too naïve, and the left that is too cynical.