One mans opinion of Left v. Right

[CCIP]

Sigh, can you please be a little less mean?

There are socialists around here too you know, and we don't appreciate being called two-faced loser-lovers

Take it easy, will you? I can say lots of things about the right. For one, I believe the fundamental problem with the right is the issue of motivation. You call it material incentive, I call it greed. For me, a world based on greed and impulses rather than reason and sustainability is at risk of eating itself. Which socialists broadly believe it's doing; the Marxists dream of helping it along a little with some revolutionizing, the non-Marxists (myself included) just take a seat and offer alternatives to the inevitable (in our humble view) downfall of capitalism (and, we hope, not the human race along with it, though it's unfortunately a real possibility).

Socialism doesn't have to be dogmatic and strictly theory-based, though theorizing comes naturally. I personally have trouble with Marxism for that specific reason (it's too pervaded by near-dogmatic theory for any real progress).

Likewise, for me socialism is not the domination of society over individual; in fact I would like socialism to look more at the individual - but I see a rational socialist "system" being aimed at an egalitarian, sustainable society where the primary motivations are not greed but - if nothing else - survival, reasonable quality of life and sustainability for all. The second reason (after greed) that I can't accept the right is that it inherently assumes that people have right to be superior to others, which devolves into creepy resemblance of social darwinism. To me that's an insult both to society and individualism, and it's scary to think that someone who emphasizes rights of the individual believes in 'losers' and the rationalization of mass human suffering for the sake of a 'better' person's rights.

I always put my belief this way - "life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness - but only in that order". If your rights to liberty and doing what you want infringe on another person's life, then you don't deserve these rights (clarification: I am not talking about fundamental human rights here). If your happiness and luxury infringe on another person's freedom, then you don't deserve that luxury. It's not a matter of taking from the rich and giving to the poor; it's a matter of observing fundamental humanist principles. A society which accepts material excuses for violating these is immoral. I may not believe in morals as such, but I think it even goes beyond that; I think a society that accepts material excuses for violating these is doomed to self-degradation and self-destruction. And I think I have a vested interest in the well-being of homo sapiens, beyond merely the specimen I inhabit.