Quote Originally Posted by Beskar View Post
I will be honest, Phillipvs, if you just didn't give the erroneous propaganda piece about "promoting a health society" straight after your objection, I would have taken it more seriously.

I only have to look at the news to see how poorly the concept "promoting a healthy society" is being applied. All around me initiatives to ensure people are reintegrated in society are collapsing, health and social care budgets being slashed, all the support systems being strangled financially. People losing their incomes, their wages are being depressed, they are overworked. On the other hand, the richest are getting richer, enjoying tax cuts and tax evasion being rather rampant.

Unless your definition of "promoting a healthy society" means ensuring those at the top end up better off with the cost passed onto the poor... I have to say you are being misguided.

Also, the translation of "Minimum of Government" seems to translate into cutting tax rates for the rich and corporations, whilst cutting the welfare state, and then expanding our military and security forces.
Struggling with the difference between principle and application, are we? Also, bear in mind the financial downturn and the massive hole in the budget left by Gordon Brown. It's all well and good to say we should be spending more on this or that, but the money has to come from somewhere. Also, you will note that the Conservatives have lifted thousands of people out of Tax, and this was a Conservative principle BEFORE the Coalition, and also that the military was savagely cut during the last parliament and is now unable to carry out most missions without American logistics - see Libya and the lack of Carriers and Harriers.

By healthy I meant "socially cohesive" in any case and that's achieved primarily through education, social care budgets are a left-wing tactic.

I cannot really argue much with this one.
The Left is, however, coercive - remember when Labour tried to ban criticism of religion? Also consider that between 1997 and 2010 they essentially bankrupted the country, putting everyone's livelihood in danger. Consider also that the last Labour government abolished the 10p tax rate and then instituted more "Tax Credits", essentially creating a system to pay back the money they had taken from the poor.

I argue otherwise. The left is usually more collective selfishness opposed to individual selfishness.
"Treating others like you should be treated yourself." is at its core selfish statement which promotes greater social cohesiveness.
"Treating others like you should be treated yourself." is not a Right-Wing belief, I doubt it would be a core Labour belief at the turn of the last century, either. This cod-philosophy is a modern cancer.

Consider the actual quote the "Golden Rule" , which is in ther Sermon on the Mount - which says that "This is the Law and the Prophets" then consider Matthew 34-40, which says that all the Law hangs on the two greatest commandments - which are "love thy God" and "love thy Neighbour as thyself".

The fetishisation of the Golden Rule has sheered it of it's context and robbed it of all meaning.

Historically, the Right appealed to tradition and social convention as the glue that held society together and gave it moral resilience whilst the Left decried the inherent economic and political unfairness of the same system. Crucially, both tried to appeal to people's inherent sense of "right" whilst presenting diametrically opposed ideal societies.

I am not a fan of Thatcherism or New Labour either.
In a world without God or morals they are, sadly, more popular than either traditional Toryism or the original Labour movement.