I saw this tweet on Facebook and shared it because I thought it pithy and to the point:
“America does not have a far left movement.
Our far-right are fascists.
Our center-right are extremist nationalists.
Our center-left are classical conservatives.
Our far-left are moral centrist moderates.
Any objective political compass would place politicians like Sanders or Warren barely left of center.
A real far-leftist movement would be advocating for forced property seizure by the working-class.
Instead our far-left is like “don’t let people die in medical pverty, please.”
This prompted an immediate response from my conservative brother and you can see the rest:
HIM; This is utter nonsense. America definitely has a far left movement. It has for decades and will continue to do so. For the health of our republic, that is a good thing, as it requires debate, thought and, in most cases rejection of many left leaning policies. “Free college” is a classic example of left leaning policy. I could provide a half a dozen similar examples. The self congratulatory statement,” our far left are moral centrist moderates” is laughable and belies the author’s self identification. Don’t we all think that our political “brand” is the moral one, after all? I am 100% non partisan and consider myself pretty centrist. The contention that the US has no far left is highly biased, at best and delusional at worst.
ME: When was the last time you heard a politician espouse the nationalization of any industry? That would be far left. How about confiscating a person's second home to relocate the poor? That would be far left. How about taking "excess pecuniary resourses" from a private citizen's bank account? That would be far left. I cannot recall any politician in my lifetime call for any such things. We do NOT have a communist party to speak of in this country. We have not had a "Progressive Party" since 1948. Nope. There is no true far left if you compare it to other developed societies.
HIM: healthcare and education are both industries that LOTS of politicians of proposing nationalization. So that’s easy. As for comparing, why use other nations as the comparison?
ME: Well if we are using a scale (left-right) with which to measure, we needs must have some other point of reference right? We are best to compare things to similar things no? What countries are most similar to ours? Western Europe? Canada? Japan? They boast similar lifestyles, educational levels, cost of living... So yes we should not compare an elephant to an eggplant. We should compare it to a rhino to get the most value of subtle gradations of difference, if the intent is to learn from the exercise. As far as the healthcare and education issues go. No one is saying you can't have private healthcare or education. No one is saying Harvard has to be a public university and its endowment should go into the treasury. Even in places where they have national healthcare, there is still private insurance for those who can afford or want it (ask XXX about it- he likes his Spanish private insurance). The push is to cut out the immoral profiteering on human misery. And i KNOW you agree with that as we have discussed it many times. It is all a matter of degree.
I have not heard from him on this matter since. Only baseball and weather so far.