The extreme left agenda: What are some elements of it? (1 Viewer)

[TheRealTruth]

This thread is in reference to Richard stating he did not like the extreme left agenda and I was curious to the finer points of what he had said. (Also this is not singling out Richard, just starting a thread of its own because he didn't want to address it in the other thread) What exactly do people not like about the extreme left agenda.

(There will also be a post about the extreme right agenda as well for fairness)

 

[not2rich]

Universal Healthcare for the world. (As stated by Kamala Harris when she stated that noone should ever be denied Healthcare)
Abolition of the Police and Prisons, (As stated by AOC and a random speaker at the DNC Convention)
No Cash Bail so all criminals are immediately released back into society (already a thing in democratic run cities around the country)
Ensure Abortion rights apply to men too. Because Men can have abortions (per Joe Biden)
Mandatory Gun Buybacks (As stated by Beto O'Rourke) which will eventually lead to abolishing gun rights.
Complete Abstinence from Fossil Fuels (Green New Deal) Bye Bye Louisiana economy
Removal of information from history taught in schools that the left doesn't agree with. (already happening and also championed by a speaker at the DNC convention)
Open Borders (don't even try to say it hasn't been championed by multiple former Dem Pres Nom's and many congress people)
America is actually a very bad and evil country, rooted in systemic racism and the hatred of minorities (despite the fact that said minorities have more wealth, opportunity to achieve wealth and success than any other nation in the world)


You can word those points in the OP to make the seem benign, but that's not what has actually been stated in interviews and speeches. People see through that BS. At the end of the day, all the Left seeks is power. You can tell by the speeches being given at the DNC. Nobody is discussing actual policies are ways they are going to make normal, everyday American's life better. The only thing they are saying is, "You have to vote for Biden so we can make sure Trump doesn't get re-elected!!" That's the true platform of the DNC. It's all they have. Give us power and we'll take care of you. Don't ask us how, just trust that we'll take care of you.

All you have to do is look at NYC, Phili, Balt, Chi, DC, LA, San Fran, Oak, Port, Sea, Minn, and many other Dem run cities to see what happens when these policies produce.

I'd like to know how your "all the Left seeks is power" theory is any more valid than an "all the Right seeks is power" theory.

Further, using your methodology, I could paint the GOP as a bunch of wackos who believe in a Satan worshiping cabal of democratic pedophiles, and who also want to destroy democracy and re-establish white supremacy.

All you have to do is look at the USA to see what GOP policies produce.

Pretty trite "analysis," right?

 

[cuddlemonkey]

Universal Healthcare for the world. (As stated by Kamala Harris when she stated that noone should ever be denied Healthcare)
Abolition of the Police and Prisons, (As stated by AOC and a random speaker at the DNC Convention)
No Cash Bail so all criminals are immediately released back into society (already a thing in democratic run cities around the country)
Ensure Abortion rights apply to men too. Because Men can have abortions (per Joe Biden)
Mandatory Gun Buybacks (As stated by Beto O'Rourke) which will eventually lead to abolishing gun rights.
Complete Abstinence from Fossil Fuels (Green New Deal) Bye Bye Louisiana economy
Removal of information from history taught in schools that the left doesn't agree with. (already happening and also championed by a speaker at the DNC convention)
Open Borders (don't even try to say it hasn't been championed by multiple former Dem Pres Nom's and many congress people)
America is actually a very bad and evil country, rooted in systemic racism and the hatred of minorities (despite the fact that said minorities have more wealth, opportunity to achieve wealth and success than any other nation in the world)


You can word those points in the OP to make the seem benign, but that's not what has actually been stated in interviews and speeches. People see through that BS. At the end of the day, all the Left seeks is power. You can tell by the speeches being given at the DNC. Nobody is discussing actual policies are ways they are going to make normal, everyday American's life better. The only thing they are saying is, "You have to vote for Biden so we can make sure Trump doesn't get re-elected!!" That's the true platform of the DNC. It's all they have. Give us power and we'll take care of you. Don't ask us how, just trust that we'll take care of you.

All you have to do is look at NYC, Phili, Balt, Chi, DC, LA, San Fran, Oak, Port, Sea, Minn, and many other Dem run cities to see what happens when these policies produce.

Can you please provide links as to where these people said these things?

 

[J-DONK]

I work in hospitals and do direct patient care, but i don't claim to be an expert on the financial aspects to know the perfect solution. I hate the insurance companies and some costs can be reduced in hospitals if insurance companies are gone and cost changes are made in hospitals.

But Medicare pays pennies on the dollars and it's not a realistic system to have for everyone unless you are okay with a decrease in quality of care and long waits for important procedures. Hospitals don't have the staff to handle the huge influx of new patients even if funding isn't an issue.

A system that can give the same quality of care is going to be much more expensive than Bernie's plan. It's important to be honest about the cost for such a huge change to the Healthcare system. Many hospitals would close if Medicare for all was implemented with the proposed reimbursement rates.

The reimbursement rates would have to be changed with a single payer system. Also, doctors, and other medical professionals would start to make comparable incomes to the rest of the developed world. That means overall less compensation. We were crazy to try a free market solution to a market that is inelastic. You won't shop hospitals in the ambulance.

Another on the list:

Tuition free college

 

[rajncajn]

Tuition free college

Can you explain how this works to me? If there's no tuition, then how do they stay open? Is it just tuition that is free or room & board as well? Would that mean no more scholarships? What then happens to all of the scholarship money?

 

[BobE]

I guess when we call it "extreme left," we're talking about the farthest left of the progressive wing of American politics, right?

So here's pretty much the far-left progressive American agenda as I see it, a generally pretty far-left American.

Universal Healthcare
Universal Basic Income

These 2 are coming and sooner rather then later imo

Pathways to citizenship for undocumented immigrants
Generally welcoming immigration policies (but not open borders, as it is often characterized by the right)

if we give all Illegal Aliens Citizenship and no longer make it illegal to cross the border (Sorry decriminalize it) and every one is welcome to come here what exactly would you call it? I mean cause it sounds like, yup, open border.

Reasonable gun purchase restrictions, and bans on assault-style weapons

What is a reasonable gun purchase restriction? If you mean something like gun show loop holes then yeah. I would also need to know the definition of "Assault-style weapons"

Legal abortion in all cases (but not like 2 days before delivery, and certainly not post-delivery, as it is often characterized by the right).

You mean characterized by that's what the Gov of Va (D) said and some of the lawmakers?

Fairness in middle-eastern policy. Valuing and supporting Israel as an ally, while not backing them unconditionally when they do wrong.

I would absolutely agree with this

Equal rights for LGBTQ citizens.

I would like to know more on this

Significant, systematic police reform

Would be no issue from me

Real steps for protecting the environment and reducing emissions to slow climate change

Again no issue

Probably some other things I missed.

We all do

 

[J-DONK]

Can you explain how this works to me? If there's no tuition, then how do they stay open? Is it just tuition that is free or room & board as well? Would that mean no more scholarships? What then happens to all of the scholarship money?

It could work a bunch of different ways, usually there is still some kind of cost like books. In a lot of countries, even room & board is covered. I would assume scholarships would still cover any additional cost, which in most systems there are some. This is a solution to a problem. That is already near crisis level to many Americans. Americans are saddled with over 1 trillion dollars in student loan debt. A debt that is normally not discharged through bankruptcy.

 

[RobF]

I mean, we can discuss extreme far-left things in other countries, communism and the like. But that’s not what the far-left in America is advocating for, so I didn’t figure that’s what we were talking about.

I think that touches on a key point here, which is that there are two distinct and substantially different versions of what an extreme or far agenda might be considered to be (I've used policies perceived to be part of the left as examples below, but you could substitute those for policies perceived to be part of the right).

So one view is what anyone, no matter how much a minority they may be, might be advocating. That is, the views held by those on the extremities. These tend to be notions significantly outside the mainstream, such as unrestricted abortion rights (i.e. any time until birth), full prohibition on gun ownership, completely open borders (i.e. no checks, no refusals, no deportation). Basically things for which there aren't any significant number of people advocating for and that are represented in few, if any, other nations (e.g. while many nations have restrictions on gun ownership, only a handful actually have prohibition). I don't think these are particularly useful to consider in most honest discourse, because, and particularly in terms of discussing support for the mainstream parties, they're largely irrelevant. By definition you can support the party without supporting those views, because those views aren't represented by the party.

The other is views held by a significant part of the mainstream party, while not necessarily being part of the party platform. So not so much views held by those on the extremities, except perhaps relatively so, but more policies that could be considered extreme in nature while still being part of the mainstream. So things like universal healthcare, or universal basic income. In most contexts, these are the relevant ones.

And then, rhetorically, disingenuous opponents will deliberately conflate the two, claiming the extreme views held by only a few represent the mainstream, and simultaneously that the more mainstream views held by many are extreme views held only by a few. They'll also misrepresent more mainstream views of an issue (e.g. civil enforcement of unauthorised immigration) with an extreme version (no enforcement at all). So a view of the "extreme/far left" formed through that misrepresentation would include both literal extreme views (e.g. completely open borders) and more mainstream views (like universal healthcare). There's clear examples of that in this thread. (Side note: parties will also use the existence of this practice to claim their opponents are misrepresenting their policies when they aren't).

So I think, particularly in the context of the mainstream parties, there's a few things to watch out for when considering what policies can actually be considered to be extreme/far policies of the party.

1) Is it part of the party platform?
2) If it isn't part of the platform, is there a significant movement to make it part of the platform? Or is anyone significant in the party (e.g. in a leadership position) pushing it? If not, it's probably not that relevant.
3) If it is part of the platform, or there's a significant push for it to be so, what is it specifically that makes it extreme?
4) If there is something that makes it extreme, is that accurate? Consider the source of your understanding of it. Is it from your own understanding of the party's representation of it, or is it a view you've received from their opponents?

It's also worth considering the implications of a policy with a view on how, and whether, those policies exist in practice internationally. A claim that universal healthcare is extreme because it fundamentally can't work, for example, would not hold up objectively in light of the many nations where it does work.

 

[RobF]

I work in hospitals and do direct patient care, but i don't claim to be an expert on the financial aspects to know the perfect solution. I hate the insurance companies and some costs can be reduced in hospitals if insurance companies are gone and cost changes are made in hospitals.

But Medicare pays pennies on the dollars and it's not a realistic system to have for everyone unless you are okay with a decrease in quality of care and long waits for important procedures. Hospitals don't have the staff to handle the huge influx of new patients even if funding isn't an issue.

A system that can give the same quality of care is going to be much more expensive than Bernie's plan. It's important to be honest about the cost for such a huge change to the Healthcare system. Many hospitals would close if Medicare for all was implemented with the proposed reimbursement rates.

I think that's a fair point to some extent. But a system that can give the same, or better, quality of care can in principle cost much less than the USA spends at the moment. The USA is spending about 17% of its GDP on healthcare. The next highest comparable country is Switzerland which spends about 12%. The USA spends much more per capita to comparable nations, without better (and in many instances worse) outcomes.

It's the transition that would be complicated. How do you get from a clearly inefficient insurance-driven system of healthcare to a more efficient and affordable universal health care system comparable to other nations? If the approach is to layer universal health care on top of the existing system, then yes, that's probably going to be pretty expensive (albeit potentially justifiable in terms of the benefits from extending health care though). But anything else involves reforming the existing system, which is going to be difficult and painful (albeit still justifiable in terms of the medium to long term benefits IMO).

 

[Ayo]

I work in hospitals and do direct patient care, but i don't claim to be an expert on the financial aspects to know the perfect solution. I hate the insurance companies and some costs can be reduced in hospitals if insurance companies are gone and cost changes are made in hospitals.

But Medicare pays pennies on the dollars and it's not a realistic system to have for everyone unless you are okay with a decrease in quality of care and long waits for important procedures. Hospitals don't have the staff to handle the huge influx of new patients even if funding isn't an issue.

A system that can give the same quality of care is going to be much more expensive than Bernie's plan. It's important to be honest about the cost for such a huge change to the Healthcare system. Many hospitals would close if Medicare for all was implemented with the proposed reimbursement rates.

if you're going to indict the system for the part where they seemingly underpay, then you should also indict the system for all of the bloat and expensive elements that drive *up* the cost of healthcare.

and when you say "same quality of care" you also have to factor in that there is no real "same" when it comes to the quality of care for everyone. There's a *huge* gap between the services some gets, acc to class or region or insurance plan or necessary prescription drugs, etc, and the service others get.

These are two considerable dynamics to variables that you brought up, and they seem to need more robust consideration than what is given here.

Personally, I think the US can do *MUCH* better when it comes to costs as well as improving the "quality of care" for millions of people. We have the resources and the brainpower to improve both - I think drastically - what we lack is the sociopolitical will.

 

[Ayo]

I don't think any of this post is actually what the OP was looking for, and I think a lot of it is alarmist nonsense, but I'll pull a few here that illustrate why I think it's wrong or, at the most generous, incomplete - and I'll try to 'stay in my lane' with the chosen items to respond to

No Cash Bail so all criminals are immediately released back into society (already a thing in democratic run cities around the country)

I think you need to look closer into the racially punitive nature of the bail system and what it's done to families and how bail corporations exploit the already marginalized. This also includes, by the way, poor whites who find themselves in positions of economic burden that compounds the perilousness they already face.

I think the entire system needs re-conceptualization but that doesn't mean just setting violent or property criminals free.

I believe - and am not alone - that the bail system actually makes the problems worse, not better, in many ways. But it's extremely profitable for a lot of them.

Anytime I talked about the bail system, I found myself also thinking about the exploitation of the Payday Loan services system. Extremely predatory, inequitable, compounding the burdens on people who are already on the margins.

I think you should look into the actual impact these practices and institutions have on society.

Here are two link where you can get started:

Criminal Justice Debt Problems

Our legal system punishes poor people far more often and more harshly than the wealthy, often through pretrial detention and cash bail. An ongoing critical evaluation of the criminal justice system has resulted in cash bail systems across the country being eliminated.

www.americanbar.org

Originally, bail was to ensure an individual’s return to court to face charges against them. However, money bail or cash bail has led to a form of wealth-based incarceration in which people of color and the less affluent languish in jail while they await trial. As many as 500,000 people are held across the country in local jails because of their inability to pay bail, mostly for low-level offenses.

After Cash Bail: A Framework for Reimagining Pretrial Justice

The Bail Project offers the following framework as a starting point for grounding bail and pretrial reform in a broader vision of democracy, progress, and collective wellbeing.

bailproject.org

Removal of information from history taught in schools that the left doesn't agree with. (already happening and also championed by a speaker at the DNC convention)

I don't know what you mean here - since it's already happening, you should be able to provide some examples of what you mean.

In the meantime, I'll just speak generally to the point based on where I've seen the issue come up - in history and other humanities courses. But also math and sciences.

For sooooo long, the White/Western narrative has driven the way curriculum was designed - what books were taught (overwhelmingly White and Male - when I did my Masters Thesis on this very subject years ago, it was 70-85% the case in Louisiana school boards, but has changed since), the perspective from which History was taught (White, Western, Colonizers, Victors), what scientists were championed (at the expense of advancements by women and visible minorities), even what courses were allowed in which schools (affluent white schools had a ton of courses with more advanced options than black schools).

We've learned that history is the slave, not just the slaveowner. We've learned that history is the subjugated. The sub-altern. The voiceless and powerless. Advancement and progress was empowered by the labor of the oppressed.

These are realities, and including them in curricula hasn't been easy - again, I've done it on two fronts. People will champion the Bill Bennett's of the world and the notion of "Cultural Literacy" (which, incidentally, is White/Western culture) or "traditional" works, ignoring that - for a lot of Louisianians - "traditional" means oral.

The expulsion of the Cajun language in Louisiana schools was a product of this - the language was dirtier, lower class, less educated, the words of the poor - and look what happened. In a single generation the language was gone.

My grandmother is an Arceneaux. My dad spoke French. But he got in trouble at school - not only did my grandmother stop speaking French at home, so her kids didn't get in trouble, she felt ashamed giving them French names.

Denis (Dennis), Michele (Michael - my dad), Katherine, Larry, Jeremiah.

You can see - in their names - where she changed.

This is what happens with the People in Power decide what goes in - and the people with no/little power have no say.

The changes to our curricula were/are long overdue.

America is actually a very bad and evil country, rooted in systemic racism and the hatred of minorities (despite the fact that said minorities have more wealth, opportunity to achieve wealth and success than any other nation in the world)

Two things are incorrect here.

First, "America has systemic racism" and "America is a very bad and evil country" are not mutually inclusive terms. It's intellectually disingenuous (but intellectually expedient for your diatribe, no doubt). America *does* have systemic racism in many areas - incarceration and education are two examples - but that doesn't mean we are bad and evil or that all white people are bad or evil.

If you acknowledge the wrongs and seek to correct them, I don't think you are evil. But we can't pretend like we're doing a good job if we can't even acknowledge the wrongs in the first place and fix them.

Secondly, the US does *not* have more wealth or opportunity to achieve than "any other nation in the world." That's very jingoistic, but it might not really be true.

You don't have to look far - just to your neighbor to the north - to see that it might not be quite that clean a claim.

Black Canadians and Black Americans: Racial Income Inequality in Comparative Perspective

this study finds that the US and Canada are comparable, when immigration is controlled for, because at initial glance, the gap is smaller in Canada than in the US

Using census data, we compare the economic status of blacks and whites in two neighbouring countries - the USA and Canada - examining the effects of international migration of people of colour upon systems of racial hierarchy. At first impression, the racial income gap is markedly smaller in Canada than in the USA. However, this is largely due to the relative sizes of first-, second- and third-plus-generation immigrants in each country. Once this is taken into account, we find that racial income and wage gaps are quite similar in the two countries, raising the puzzle of why nations with such divergent institutional histories produce similar levels of racial inequality.

You're Twice as Likely to Achieve the American Dream in Canada than the US

That article uses a metric designed by researchers at the Federal Reserve in St. Louis. And social mobility is at an all-time low in the US. And most Blacks live in the lower socioeconomic brackets and, consequently, their opportunities to rise are becoming increasingly restricted, limited, and fewer.

And this study takes the above metric and complicates it further, looking not just at that but also region and the impact. It's from CUNY - a terrific research center on these topics; I've worked with them before - and University of Montreal.

Social Mobility is Twice as Great in Canada as in the United States

The study suggests that the American Dream may be more attainable in Canada, where the middle class is within easier reach of children raised in low-income families. Canadian children raised by parents with incomes in the bottom 10 percent can expect to be earning enough as a young adults to place them above the 40th rung of a 100-rung income ladder, significantly higher than their U.S. counterparts, the study’s authors found. To reach a similar point on the income ladder, a child in the United States would have to have parents who ranked as high as the 39th percentile.

It talks about how difficult it is in the US South specifically to climb the ladder. This primarily means poor Blacks and poor Whites.

And this struck me as a pretty stark reality:

While Canadian challenges may be just as important, likely associated with the indigenous populations in geographically isolated areas of the country, “there is no parallel in Canada for the magnitude of the experience in the American South.”

I am sure nobody made it this far lol.

But my point is that while these talking points have populist appeal, further examination complicates those assumptions which, conveniently enough, only serve to maintain the status quo and keep the 400-years-old power hierarchy intact.

 

[Complex Kid]

I mean, we can discuss extreme far-left things in other countries, communism and the like. But that’s not what the far-left in America is advocating for, so I didn’t figure that’s what we were talking about.

A lot of the things listed as "far left" for America, a majority of countries already have in place and have had for a while.

 

[dtc]

Can you explain how this works to me? If there's no tuition, then how do they stay open? Is it just tuition that is free or room & board as well? Would that mean no more scholarships? What then happens to all of the scholarship money?

When you listen to just the right-wing talking points and rhetoric from the vocal extremes you lose track of what's really being said.

Nobody is saying that every college and University should become free to every 4th place trophy winner.

What's being said is that basic state college education should be available to everyone at a cost that's reasonable.

In all practicality, that means an expansion of state universities and community colleges. It should also mean a drastic increase in technical schools that are not private, for-profit institutions of financial rape. What it absolutely doesn't mean is that Harvard will be free to the kid that makes a 2.5 in general studies.

States used to fund higher education, but they really don't much anymore. It's all become big business and instead of focusing on quality and NORMAL education, the big schools compete for high dollar students with giant stadiums, condo dorms and things completely unnecessary for learning. We've lost track of how to teach efficiently and that's got to change whether it's via the market or higher education reform including federally funded higher education.

 

[dtc]

I work in hospitals and do direct patient care, but i don't claim to be an expert on the financial aspects to know the perfect solution. I hate the insurance companies and some costs can be reduced in hospitals if insurance companies are gone and cost changes are made in hospitals.

I completely agree. We could start with reducing the insane amounts of money that hospitals spend on advertising. We could further that effort by reducing the amount of money that is wasted in every facet of brand building and marketing from enormously over-priced buildings to ridiculous executive compensation packages.

There are 2 main hospitals in my town and between the two of them, they spend more money on advertising than I would think our whole municipal government spends on its entire budget. One of them is moving and building a new facility that is going to be hundreds of millions and look like the Taj Majal and that's ok, but it's excessive. The other one has a campus that now must be close to 1000 acres and is bounded by signs that cost hundreds of thousands of dollars on each corner. Seriously, Im talking about a 300' wall with lit up letters built up on a giant levee sized hill complete with trees and bushes and seasonal flowers. If I had to bet, 500k per sign. There are 4. And, what's the purpose of the color changing LED uplights on the buildings? The place looks like a kid with neon spinners on his car, but that's the "cost of healthcare", right?

 

[bdb13]

I completely agree. We could start with reducing the insane amounts of money that hospitals spend on advertising. We could further that effort by reducing the amount of money that is wasted in every facet of brand building and marketing from enormously over-priced buildings to ridiculous executive compensation packages.

There are 2 main hospitals in my town and between the two of them, they spend more money on advertising than I would think our whole municipal government spends on its entire budget. One of them is moving and building a new facility that is going to be hundreds of millions and look like the Taj Majal and that's ok, but it's excessive. The other one has a campus that now must be close to 1000 acres and is bounded by signs that cost hundreds of thousands of dollars on each corner. Seriously, Im talking about a 300' wall with lit up letters built up on a giant levee sized hill complete with trees and bushes and seasonal flowers. If I had to bet, 500k per sign. There are 4. And, what's the purpose of the color changing LED uplights on the buildings? The place looks like a kid with neon spinners on his car, but that's the "cost of healthcare", right?

LOL, are you talking about the Medical Center Clinic next to WFH with the changing lights?

If so, I used to work there andthat happened after the CEO went to Vegas and he singularly thought it was a good idea so it happened.

They really should have just cleaned the building off though.

 

[dtc]

LOL, are you talking about the Medical Center Clinic next to WFH with the changing lights?

If so, I used to work there andthat happened after the CEO went to Vegas and he singularly thought it was a good idea so it happened.

They really should have just cleaned the building off though.

I was actually talking about Sacred Heart. The new kid's hospital was changing colors, but I think they might have turned it off. Haven't drive by there at night and paid attention, but the medical center clinic is a perfect example of wasting money. They probably spent 250k on lights to do that and not a single patient benefited.

The signs at Sacred Heart each cost what a 3000 sq ft house costs.

 

[Booker]

All you have to do is look at NYC, Phili, Balt, Chi, DC, LA, San Fran, Oak, Port, Sea, Minn, and many other Dem run cities to see what happens when these policies produce.

That's literally a list of some of the greatest cities in the country.

 

[bdb13]

I was actually talking about Sacred Heart. The new kid's hospital was changing colors, but I think they might have turned it off. Haven't drive by there at night and paid attention, but the medical center clinic is a perfect example of wasting money. They probably spent 250k on lights to do that and not a single patient benefited.

The signs at Sacred Heart each cost what a 3000 sq ft house costs.

Nor did anyone decide to go to the doctor for the awesome light show.. dumb all around.

 

[Complex Kid]

Nor did anyone decide to go to the doctor for the awesome light show.. dumb all around.

I know when I'm suffering from a heart attack I ask the ambulance driver to bring me to the hospital that more resembles Disney World. If you can't ride the tea cups afterward whats even the point of surviving?!?