Do Leftists eventually turn Right?

[peter_puck]

Someone (Shaw, Clemenceau, Briand?) said that if you are not a socialist in your twenties, you have no heart. But if you are still a socialist in your forties, you have no brain.

/

I have heard that the quote came from Churchill - though I am note sure.

I may have become slightly more liberal over time, although mostly for pragmatic reasons. I am a small c conservative, but the facts have caused me to change my views on certain issues.

I used to support the "war on drugs", but that war has clearly failed in a dramatic way. It is time to give the liberals a shot at it.

I used to be very critical of many goofy aspects of the enviromental movement, but I cannot argue with the evidence behind global warming or peak oil (although I would certainly not be on the extreme fringes of those groups)

I used to think most things would be better run by the private sector, until I looked at the US health system.

On the other hand, I was never a big fan of workfare....but I have to admit it appears to have worked.

[peter_puck]

When your young it's hard not to be enticed by the left, that's where all the easy chicks are.

There was an article somewhere that talked about neo-cons having a hard time getting dates. There might be some truth to that....

[ReeferMadness]

Someone (Shaw, Clemenceau, Briand?) said that if you are not a socialist in your twenties, you have no heart. But if you are still a socialist in your forties, you have no brain.

I hope that's not true because it means I have neither heart nor brains

Seriously, though, when I was a starving student, living below the poverty line, my ideas could best be described as far right wing (even as I cashed my student loan). I was a product of growing up in a conservative rural area - good government was no government. But that was how I thought before I learned to think.

Today, although people call me a leftist (and in truth I sympathize with much of what the left is about), I don't think there is a place for me on any recognizable part of the political spectrum. No party represents the things I believe and any that tried to would be dismissed as kooks.

I think we should be looking to shrink the economy as much as possible while still maintaining as much as possible of our standard of living (think 80-20 here). of course this is pure heresy - everyone "knows" that we are all better off when the economy is growing. Somehow, we all are better of if people are "working for a living" whether or not the work is of any real value.

I believe that Capitalism is an enormously wasteful and inefficient system. People draw enormous salaries for adding little or no value to the products or services they sell. Advertising. Marketing. Legal. Can anyone defend the huge salaries the executives on Wall Street have been drawing?

And what about all the shoddy products that are only built to last a short time so they can be replaced again? Why can't we build refrigerators that last 25 years anymore? Are we better off now that we replace them every 5-7 years?

And what do economists mean when they speak of efficiency? Say a Canadian company has a modern, automated plant with 10 employees drawing a decent wage. They dump the high-tech equipment, move to China, hire 100 people each earning 2% of what the Canadian workers made. They can still ship their product back to Canada and sell it cheaper than when it was made here. Economists call that efficiency which is why I'm more inclined to listen to real scientists.

Back in the late 80s and early 90s, business process re-engineering was all the rage. Essentially it consisted of taking a business process (procurement, for example), mapping out the essential goals and coming up with new ways to eliminate the parts that didn't add value. Whole departments were eliminated or outsourced. I think they had the right idea but they were thinking too small. If they were to do this on a nation-wide or world-wide basis, market Capitalism as we know it would disappear.

When I hear people complain of the waste in government, I think "compared to what?". When Alberta's liquor stores were publicly owned, people would have howled in self-righteous indignation if there were stores on every corner. How wasteful! How inefficient! Now there are private liquor stores on every corner and everyone thinks it's great. Is it better to have 50,000 people working at a low wage than 20,000 working for a living wage? And to those of you who are about to say something about what the job is "worth", I refer you back to the CEO's on Wall Street and the Stock Market in general. Capitalism can be just as arbitrary in defining "worth" as any government bureaucrat.

[noahbody]

When Alberta's liquor stores were publicly owned, people would have howled in self-righteous indignation if there were stores on every corner. How wasteful! How inefficient! Now there are private liquor stores on every corner and everyone thinks it's great.

More small business opportunities. More employment. More locations. More convenient hours. Less taxes. I'll drink to that.

[WIP]

There is a general tendency to become more conservative and set in your ways as you age; combine that with the fact that most of us become more fiscally conservative when we are old enough to have the jobs that put us into higher tax brackets and out of reach of sales tax and child tax credits -- so when you start feeling the pinch of the taxman you might be inclined to want your taxes kept lower and be less enthusiastic about supporting new social programs.

That said, the real world sometimes intrudes on political theory! Right now, I'm observing the growing gap in income between rich and poor -- which is especially bad in the U.S., since the "rising tide raises all boats" mantra of supply-side economics did didly squat to add wealth to the middleclass and underclass, while the richest 2% became obscenely rich! A growing gap between rich and poor is a recipe for disaster, and the motivation to encourage the have-nots to lose faith in the system and just start taking away from the rich -- either through socialism or even by the use of force -- it's happened elsewhere around the world throughout history so there's no reason why it can't happen in Canada and the United States!

So, along with being sick to death of social conservatives meddling with and trying to deny our personal rights to decide birth control and abortion, who we should be allowed to marry, what we can watch on TV, pay for sexual services if we can't get it for free, use soft drugs etc. -- I feel the need to oppose military hawks who use fear and hatred of foreigners to build support for a policy of engaging in more proxy wars in far off lands, and even the fiscal arguments that motivated me to vote P.C. and Reform in the past, ring hollow now that this complicated financial ponzi scheme is crashing down around us and looks poised to destroy the rest of the economy!

And that's why my boat is sailing back to the left side of political aisle! It's not that I'm motivated by liberal or progressive arguments; it's more a matter that I am sick of what the Right has to offer, and see nothing positive in what conservatives are offering up!

[August1991]

A bio section is not a bad idea. While some people would of course remain utterly uninterested (as with almost any topic, really), others enjoy this sort of thing.

For some people, it helps to get a different, broader view of a poster; that a poster is not defined by an avatar of expressed political opinions, or by style of debate/discussion.

Bump.

Lots of right-wingers came from hippie parents, just as hippies come from conservative parents. And, as I have said before, can't we all just get abong ?

Abong? Edited November 18, 2010 by August1991

[Michael Hardner]

Abong?

[maple_leafs182]

I am not a fan of this left right paradigm, I think we need to measure it from top to bottom too. Top being fascist and bottom being anarchist.

I am 21 and I do consider myself to be socialist but I am more of a libertarian socialist. Not all socialist believe in raising taxes and bigger government.

I've been looking into ecosocialism which looks to use technology to relieve humans of labour while respecting the environment. Imagine a society where you only had to work 3 or 4 days a week instead of 5.

[eyeball]

I am not a fan of this left right paradigm, I think we need to measure it from top to bottom too. Top being fascist and bottom being anarchist.

To me top and bottom better represents the polarity that exists between the government and the governed.

Given the volatility of elections not to mention the increasing number of people who are refusing to vote at all this polarity is becoming more apparent.

Edited November 18, 2010 by eyeball

[wyly]

few lefties turn right, it's an illusion, todays lefties are tomorrows center...over time our entire society moves progessively toward the left, the old rightwingnuts just die off thankfully...

[August1991]

.. few lefties turn right, it's an illusion...

A leftist illusion.

So wyly, you're still a leftist. Are you one of those old long-haired hippies?

[Bonam]

It's not so much that people become more conservative as they age, it's that society "progresses" to the left over time. Most people tend to settle into their moral and political opinions by their 20s, and most people's ideas are in the "political mainstream at that time". If you talk to someone who was 20 in the 50s, they will likely seem very conservative, as old people generally do. But, they may well have been liberal in the 50s, because in the 50s, being liberal meant something totally different than what it means today. Similarly, many young liberals today will still believe in the same liberal ideals 50 years down the road, you know, equal rights for homosexuals, multiculturalism and tolerance, etc, but they may well seem conservative to the young liberals of 2060, who will be fighting hard for equal rights for cockroaches and the like.

Summary: individual people stay the same over much of their life, society becomes more liberal over time (in recent Western history), so as people get older, they seem more conservative relative to the values of mainstream society at that time

Edited November 19, 2010 by Bonam

[dre]

I know as I got older I calmed down. Im not as passionate about either my liberal or conservative traits and views as I was in my 20's. Im more tolerant (left), but more careful(right). I think maybe I became more socially liberal as the things that were contraversial became boring and commonplace (gays, immigrants, welfare bums, etc), but more fiscally conservative, and less wreckless.

Theres no question though that society moves to the social left as time goes by in terms of their absolute positions on things. The things that right-wingers were ranting about 30 years ago are totally common-place now. Abortion, invitro-fertilization, homosexuals, homosexual marriage, immigrants, minorities and minority rights, big government, the welfare state etc. The progressives have won on almost every issue they have gotten serious about.

I basically see that trend continuing. More socially liberal and more tolerant, but more fiscally conservative. The west has peaked economically, and people over the next few decades are going to have to be more careful, and conservative in how they live, and more tolerant of and less interested in others. Sort of a libertarian trend I guess.

Edited November 19, 2010 by dre

[Oleg Bach]

Speaking of "good war" - not once have I heard our left stand up and totally condemn the so called mission in Afghanistan...Here is the two devides --- The left are more concerned about feminist eccentric agendas - that they will force on a tribe half way around the world - the Consevative right is simply there to make some money..now who is smarter?

[Shwa]

Speaking of "good war" - not once have I heard our left stand up and totally condemn the so called mission in Afghanistan...Here is the two devides --- The left are more concerned about feminist eccentric agendas - that they will force on a tribe half way around the world - the Consevative right is simply there to make some money..now who is smarter?

Feminist eccentric agendas? What is that? Is that like the cat lady or something?

[Shady]

I don't have time to read through all 10 pages. So if this has already been posted, I apologize. But I think Winston Chruchill said it best.

“If you're not a liberal at twenty you have no heart, if you're not a conservative at forty you have no brain.”

[maple_leafs182]

I don't have time to read through all 10 pages. So if this has already been posted, I apologize. But I think Winston Chruchill said it best.

ya, it was in the very 1st post actually.

[August1991]

I don't have time to read through all 10 pages. So if this has already been posted, I apologize. But I think Winston Chruchill said it best.

In fact, Winston Churchill never said that.

Link

[BubberMiley]

Don't mind him. He never gets anything quite right. He's thinking of George Bernard Shaw, who said "Any man who is not a communist at the age of twenty is a fool. Any man who is still a communist at the age of thirty is an even bigger fool."

But he also said "Every man over forty is a scoundrel." and "Capitalism has destroyed our belief in any effective power but that of self interest backed by force."

[Jack Weber]

Don't mind him. He never gets anything quite right. He's thinking of George Bernard Shaw, who said "Any man who is not a communist at the age of twenty is a fool. Any man who is still a communist at the age of thirty is an even bigger fool."

But he also said "Every man over forty is a scoundrel." and "Capitalism has destroyed our belief in any effective power but that of self interest backed by force."

Professor Kitzel got something historical wrong???

I'm shocked!!!

[bloodyminded]

I personally have moved quite far to what is conventionally called "the left" as I've gotten older.

But as several posters have pointed out in this thread, the matter is not too clear anyway.

For me, a near pitch-perfect analogy of the matter is one of Bertrand Russell's remarks on atheism vs. agnosticism:

I never know whether I should say "Agnostic" or whether I should say "Atheist". It is a very difficult question and I daresay that some of you have been troubled by it. As a philosopher, if I were speaking to a purely philosophic audience I should say that I ought to describe myself as an Agnostic, because I do not think that there is a conclusive argument by which one prove that there is not a God.

On the other hand, if I am to convey the right impression to the ordinary man in the street I think I ought to say that I am an Atheist, because when I say that I cannot prove that there is not a God, I ought to add equally that I cannot prove that there are not the Homeric gods.

I use this analogy because, in these political discussions, I generally refer to myself as a "leftist"; but there is context, and there is subtext, and there are complications and connotations and lots of variation.

So for simplicity's sake, I will call myself "a man of the left." But it is only useful as crude shorthand.

For example, I believe in a market-based, capitalist economy, but with ameliorative socialist properties.

This is mainstream opinion. With a few (very few) exceptions, everyone believes the same thing. Most arguments are only about questions of degree, though we strangely tend to believe otherwise at the time.

My "leftism" is less about economic issues philosophically than they are with my more obssessive concern about foreign policies and the current world order. Because I think, and state, that the virtual militarization of foreign policy and the way matters are handled are rarely--if ever--about humanitarian concerns (always at least part of the claim); and that what we refer to as "the West" is actually rapaciously ruling the globe through force, for purely selfish reasons (or at least, close enough to it); and that this requires not true Evil, but only the banal and long-historical institutionalization of Power and its preferred methods (violence, mass murder, etc); and because, in the current order, we decry terrorism, and declate a "war" on terrorism, even though we are flatly and obviously complicit in terrorism, and intentionally so, thanks to the institutional demands of State intervention....

....Well, it's primarily these matters that place me--not by own decision--in the category known as "the left."

Since there's no objective, "natural," unequivocal reason that a right-winger couldn't have precisely the same complaints, the "left" label is quite tenuous, and perhaps historically subjective.

There's evidence to underscore this, if one is willing to really listen to people: Andrew Bacevich, the long-time military man and lifelong conservative, tells us that his views on American foreign policy are largely in accord with "the radical left." But he remains, as he says, a conservative, and declares there is no objective contradiction;

or the late Raul Hilberg, eminent historian and the man who single-handedly invented the field of Holocaust Studies: also a life-long conservative, he claimed absolute agreement with some central arguments from harsh critic of Israel Norm Finkelstein, a man who is not even allowed into Israel, and Hilberg stated that "history will be kind to him." And yet Hilberg remained a conservative Republican to his last days.

So, for the sake of ease, I'm of "the left." But this doesn't tell me much, and it tells the rest of you even less, I suspect.

[nicky10013]

I think age has a little bit to do with it. I think education is a bigger factor. In poll after poll if you actually look at the breakdowns based on gender and education, people with a college degree or higher go towards the centre left and the people with high school or under cut centre right.

[Oleg Bach]

Feminist eccentric agendas? What is that? Is that like the cat lady or something?

Yah kind of like that. Older woman who never really marry because they were to busy being feminists and fighting for the cause...and in the end they live with dogs or a squad of cats..that have place matts at the table... Leftists do eventually turn right. I have seen in in the court system - Female and male leftist lawyers who grow older and eventually eek out a very good living playing the lefty game...and in the end they become what they hated........Rich right wingers pandering to the left...Old feminists really do not care about their "sisters" anymore - they just care about the bank balance and that million dollar cottage in Muskoka...In the end success breeds right wingers - always!

[bloodyminded]

I don't know, Oleg. When I was younger and less financially stable, I was more conservative then I am now.

Then I started thinking and reflecting. Voila!

[Shwa]

I don't know, Oleg. When I was younger and less financially stable, I was more conservative then I am now.

Then I started thinking and reflecting. Voila!

Hey... me too!

Heck I even voted for Mulroney when I was in my twenties. I even had suits back then.