Okay, Mrmom2, what you said is honorable.
But just for clarity, a rare commodity these days for me, I'd like to submit to you a few ideas:
1. Yes, some use the rhetoric to keep the masses in line, but somehow it does fail to keep us all in line, doesn't it?
What innoculated you? And then I ask, why do most people say what you just said? Everyone likes to say they don't believe in the left or right, and I take them for their intended face value, because it is human nature to want to believe in our ability to weigh matters for ourselves, isn't it? I don't really believe people are as malleable you do, especially when you look deeper.
2. The wealthy will rape the planet and will always look for cheap labor. Adam Smith, in the Wealth of Nations, called this greed, this incentive to improve one's own self, "the silent hand" that ends up being the only psychological choice that guides all economic decisions.
To ignore the psychology of personal incentive is to have every system of governmental allocation of resources to fall apart. There has to be some of the chaos and dislocation of freedom in order not to stifle human drive.
3. The trick is to mix those parts of socialism and capitalism that best correspond to human psychology.
4. And finally, this left or right terminology. George Orwell taught us that by eliminating words from the dictionary people found it laborious and difficult to express certain thoughts cogently and succinctly. For purposes of discussion, words themselves are labels and we label everything we see, hear, touch, and act upon.
And so sometimes it is less laborious to use a word that does label a way of thinking and we should not lose these shortcuts or labels or words because sometimes it is quite tedious to write a whole paragraph when one word, understood by all, would suffice.
Afterall, what is the difference between eliminating words from the dictionary by governmental decree, or by cultural fiat, or by political correctness?
