DescentBB

How strongly do you agree (or disagree) with the following:



changes in climate threaten human extinction;

fossil fuels should be banned, and alternative fuels should be mandated;

wealth and income should be forcibly redistributed;

no individual should earn more than a set amount of money each year;

welfare and entitlement programs should be vastly increased;

whole industries (healthcare, education) should be nationalized, while others (energy, banking) should be regulated to the point of de facto nationalization;

some form of global government should be installed;

a global wealth tax should be implemented;

private ownership of firearms should be banned;

anti-discrimination legislation should be applied to private religious organizations;

racial, gender, and sexual orientation quotas should be mandated on both public and private employers;

certain types of speech should be criminalized;

certain criminals should be subjected to greater penalties if motivated by “hate”;

social justice should be pursued by any means necessary;

government should attempt to engineer equality of outcomes

I believe that this is another QUALITY thread.

Top Gun wrote:I believe that this is another QUALITY thread.

Something wrong with trying to find out what people think about these issues?

Wait, is this one of those posts where you think these are things Liberals believe?

just a troll topic.

In different countries, the result of this poll will be drastically different. In addition, all these theses are irrelevant to global human progress. For example, the United States has long believe the progress of all mankind unprofitable for himself.

agree with some, disagree completely with others. Some have been reality in the US for a century. There is no reason for any individual to be able to say with an absolute response either way. I strongly suspect the earlier replies are correct, this is TB coming up with an imaginary 'liberal boogie man' platform.

I suspect this whole thread is targeted at some specific politician (Bernie?) But hey, I'll play along by voting in the poll.

The poll is meaningless, but I will answer the questions from my perspective.

changes in climate threaten human extinction;

Total extinction might be a stretch as humans are very adaptable, but I see no reason to doubt that rapid climate change can spur the collapse of food webs we currently depend on.

fossil fuels should be banned, and alternative fuels should be mandated;

I think when a clean/renewable alternative is available for a required power generation scenario, fossil fuel should be removed as an option for that scenario. Even if only for the fact that coal/oil is finite and unsustainable. What we burn today we cannot burn tomorrow.

wealth and income should be forcibly redistributed;

Define forcibly. We can try to agree on a method for continual moderate redistribution, or we can simply break out the pitchforks when things get extreme.

no individual should earn more than a set amount of money each year;

A progressive income tax seems adequate to restrict/redistribute extreme pay.

welfare and entitlement programs should be vastly increased;

I think Medicare should be expanded to cover everyone, so I'm guessing I fall in the "vastly increased" camp.

whole industries (healthcare, education) should be nationalized, while others (energy, banking) should be regulated to the point of de facto nationalization;

It is my opinion that the more dysfunctional or captive the market, the greater the need for collective bargaining and regulation to balance profit motive with outcome.

some form of global government should be installed;

Probably, and likely with environmental stewardship as it's mandate. It would obviously be fraught with peril by nature of the consolidated power, but I can foresee that as the centuries march on, such an establishment would be required.

a global wealth tax should be implemented;

Death and taxes. Gotta pay for the global government somehow, right? And when Earth joins the Federation of Populated Planets, I'm sure we'll be burdened by taxation on an even higher plane.

private ownership of firearms should be banned;

Not banned, but restricted. We can debate the degree, but I consider the numbers and lethality open to debate.

anti-discrimination legislation should be applied to private religious organizations;

If they provide public services, they should be held to the same regulations as any other organization that provides public services.

racial, gender, and sexual orientation quotas should be mandated on both public and private employers;

While I see quotas as a relevant temporary tool to address past abuse, their future implementation should theoretically be reduced as present abuse is minimized going forward. If honored, anti-discrimination regulations should negate the relevance of quotas in the long term.

certain types of speech should be criminalized;

It depends on how you define speech. Someone standing on a soap box on the corner of the street speaking his mind should never be criminalized unless intentional falsehoods are spoken. But there are a lot of things our courts have deemed speech that I do not. I view speech as something everyone can do equally, regardless of station or wealth. So something you might consider to be the criminalization of speech, I may not consider to be speech at all.

certain criminals should be subjected to greater penalties if motivated by “hate”;

I do not agree with "hate crime" legislation. While I believe in sentencing discretion which may result in sentencing inequality, I believe sentencing should be based on the crime rather than the motivation.

social justice should be pursued by any means necessary;


government should attempt to engineer equality of outcomes

These two kind of go together. Social justice should be pursued, but not necessarily by any means. Rather than engineer equality of outcomes, government should seek to minimize the extremes of outcomes. Providing opportunity for the less advantaged does inherently minimize some advantage from the affluent, but it removes the ambitions of affluence from neither. The affluent aren't going to go Galt, and if some do, there are plenty waiting in the wings to take their place.

Nightshade wrote:

Top Gun wrote:I believe that this is another QUALITY thread.

Something wrong with trying to find out what people think about these issues?

There's something wrong when even a toddler could see through your motives. You have this warped, twisted view of what "evil liberals" believe, and for some reason you're irrationally terrified of it, so you create this poll with some absurdly-exaggerated questions so that you can use the results as a sort of confirmation bias. It's just your latent paranoia manifesting itself in yet another form, and quite frankly, it got old a very long time ago.

well, TG, there is that.....