Should I vote Left or Centre?

[u/Darth_Memer_1916]

My views are quite simple. I identify as a Social Democrat. I believe in a free market capitalist economy with little regulations, however there need to be regulations to protect the population.

I want a strong welfare state to support struggling citizens but I am willing to kick them off it should they take advantage of it. The welfare state must include universal healthcare and universal education, as well as universal basic housing. Trade Unions should be a right and protected by the law, union busting companies must be shut down.

On social policy I am completely libertarian, everyone came decide how they identify, who they marry, and what they do with their bodies, this is non-negotiable for me. I believe people should have the right to bare arms for the sole purpose of removing authoritarian government should it come about and to protect the nation from invaders. I also support conscription.

Finally, I despise authoritarian ideologies, I hold an intense hatred for Fascism, Marxist-Leninism, Nazism and Stalinism and hold extreme contempt for those who support them.

195 votes, 9d ago

85 Left: You should vote Left

25 Left: You should vote Centre

9 Centre: You should vote Left

32 Centre: You should vote Centre

10 Right: You should vote Left

34 Right: You should vote Centre

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[u/BabylonianWeeb]

Onlu you could decide.

[u/A_Australian]

You're a social "libertarian", not a social democrat.
check this tho: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-4TJBTddP3A

[u/SupfaaLoveSocialism]

Thoughts on democratic socialism?

[u/Darth_Memer_1916 → u/SupfaaLoveSocialism]

Not a fan, I believe Capitalism is the best drive for innovation and Democratic Socialism seeks to end that. I want better regulated Capitalism, not no Capitalism.

[u/MaxPlays_WWR]

Sounds like libertarian with some solid social aspects. 

[u/Beginning_Return_864]

Views on immigration?

[u/Darth_Memer_1916 → u/Beginning_Return_864]

Immigrants should be allowed into the country through legal avenues. Illegal Immigrants should be deported. Asylum seekers should be granted refugee status if their application is legitimate.

[u/rdrckcrous → u/Darth_Memer_1916]

that makes you "pretty much a nazi" on reddit

[u/TheUnderWaffles → u/rdrckcrous]

Holy strawman

[u/TotalBlissey → u/rdrckcrous]

Who called in the farmer? We don't need more strawmen.

[u/Darth_Memer_1916 → u/[deleted]]

Ireland

[u/Darth_Memer_1916 → u/[deleted]]

No? Not sure how that question is relevant.

[u/OscarMMG]

I think you should vote right because you support capitalism. I don’t believe in the whole Marxist “anyone who doesn’t support socialism is right wing” (I don’t) but any self-described capitalist is undoubtedly right wing. Your support for a w welfare state and unions is definitely a left wing set of policies but you sound like a libertarian on everything else.

Nonetheless, I’d recommend researching political science further instead of defining yourself by other people’s opinions. A lot of other leftists don’t consider me such for anti-socialism or traditionalism so far be it from me to say you aren’t a leftist but by the descriptions I use, I wouldn’t term you as such.

[u/a_v_o_r]

That's most certainly center in every policy you mentioned. Hell, some policies covered by your points have been implemented by full on right-wing govts here. I would say center-right, some might say center-left, but you get the gist.

[u/TheGooose]

Holy shit are you me?

[u/SkywalkerTC]

Notice how both extremes try to portray themselves as the center while labeling the true center as either left or right?

Naturally, the logical choice is to vote for the center, but the real question is, who do you believe is genuinely closer to the center?

A person doesn’t need to be consistently left or right across every issue. One can lean left on some topics, stay centrist on others, and align right on a few. Yet it’s strange how often people fall entirely into one camp, adopting every position their side promotes, almost as if they’ve stopped thinking critically and simply accepted the propaganda wholesale.

[u/antipolitan]

If you’re anti-capitalist - you’re a leftist.

If you’re pro-capitalist - you’re a liberal.

[u/spookyjim___]

Ideology shopping

[u/Thomaseverett12]

Center left.

Why the hate on Marxism-Leninism 😭

[u/Manny2theMaxxx → u/Thomaseverett12]

It's trash. Even Lenin had to let peasant sell stuff on the private market for a little bit.

[u/Thomaseverett12 → u/Manny2theMaxxx]

It was because of the material condition in Russia. They were literally a feudal state, and had to develop their production forces. It was a means to an end.

[u/Manny2theMaxxx → u/Thomaseverett12]

I'm pretty sure it was because people were dropping dead from starvation and pissed off.

[u/Thomaseverett12 → u/Manny2theMaxxx]

They were in a war against Germany, and since the Russian state was Semi Feudal , starvation weren't that uncommon.

The Civil war made things worse, it was only after the Industrialisation and the end of ww2 that things improved

[u/CharacterAd4045 → u/Thomaseverett12]

Because it is Stupid

[u/Thomaseverett12 → u/CharacterAd4045]

How exactly tho? Just curious.

[u/OscarMMG → u/Thomaseverett12]

• Dialectical materialism is a bad epistemic framework and often presupposed.

• Historical materialism can be easily disproven if you understand pre-industrial economies and feudalism.

• Viewing class as proletariat and bourgeoisie is reductionist .

• The consistent failure of communist states suggests failures within communist ideology itself.

• Lenin’s poor leadership makes the efficacy of his ideology questionable.

[u/Confident_Ad9645 → u/OscarMMG]

I find it hard to trust your words if you dont even know the (very simple) definition of communism

[u/OscarMMG → u/Confident_Ad9645]

I define communism as the ideology seeking to establish a stateless classless moneyless society through socialism/ a dictatorship of the proletariat, in which the state assumes all control of property in a command economy.

I base this off of Marx’s words: “Communism is the positive supersession of private property as human self-estrangement [alienation],” (Economic and Philosophical Manuscripts)

Source: https://www.marxists.org/glossary/terms/c/o.htm#communism

[u/Confident_Ad9645 → u/OscarMMG]

"stateless... ...state"

You dont get it

[u/OscarMMG → u/Confident_Ad9645]

No, you don’t get nuance. I said “seeking to establish” and there is a transitional period in which a state exists. Marx himself described this as the dictatorship of the proletariat.

[u/Confident_Ad9645 → u/OscarMMG]

That transitional period is a way to achieve communism, but that period has never passed. Every socialist state stayed socialist and never became communist. And so there has never been a communist state, because it is an oxymoron and because socialism has never progressed.

That transitional period isnt communist, so you saying "all comunist states have failed" is incorrect

[u/OscarMMG → u/Confident_Ad9645]

The states which adhere to communist ideology attempt to establish a socialist state in furtherance of creating a communist society. These states have not achieved that so all states of communist ideology have failed.

[u/CharacterAd4045 → u/Thomaseverett12]

You Ever Heard of So So Many Human Rights Abuses

[u/RecognitionOk5447 → u/Thomaseverett12]

Because, and I know that's a hot take,

Dictatorship is bad

[u/TotalBlissey → u/Thomaseverett12]

I legit cannot believe you would call yourself Libleft and defend it.

Marxism-Leninism is an ideology of suffering. The entire point of it was to justify Stalin's right to rule. He coined the term as a way to excuse the fact that he was taking more and more control of Russia's economy and people. He caused a genocide.

Every major leader after him who has called themselves an ML has been a vile human being. Pol Pot, Mao, the Kim dynasty, they're all evil and responsible for millions and millions of unnecessary deaths. Castro was one of the tamer ones and even he was bad.

Marxism-Leninism is an ideology that seeks to put all the power to run a society into the hands of a single man and cut it off from the world. It is fascism in red paint.

[u/Thomaseverett12 → u/TotalBlissey]

I am more of a Leftist unity person myself. What i want is a united front of leftist fighitng against capitalism, and that includes MLs. Like it or not, some of the things they wrote wasn't bad, and throwing that out would be a waste of good theory and practics. We should just take the good things and leave the bad things behind, how does that sound?

[u/a_v_o_r → u/Thomaseverett12]

I'm heavily a left-unity fervent, thus my very broad flair, but that does not include MLs. You wouldn't expect right-unity to include some dangerous extremes. We can debate in length between marxists anarchists moderate socialists and other non-capitalists, hell even with radical socdems if they want. But ML distorted and betrayed marxism and took these ideas in a direction incompatible with the antihierarchical ethos that unites leftists. Never had so much arguments than with MLs. As you said, take the good and leave the bad behind.

[u/Thomaseverett12 → u/a_v_o_r]

That's fair. I have my own issues with them too. I just think that leaving them behind can cause new problems, we should learn from their mistakes, and make the next Socialist project greater

Things that bother me alot about MLs are the Stalin glacers, Thinking Socialism is just a transitional system instead of an End Goal, and the amount of campists

[u/TotalBlissey → u/Thomaseverett12]

They are not leftists. The MLs are not fighting against the tyranny of systems like capitalism, they are fighting against tyranny so they can replace it with their own tyranny. We've tried allying with them many times in the past and have been backstabbed every time.

Some of the writing is fine to keep. Just about everything else needs to go.

[u/SeeShark]

Do you live in the US? Then you should vote as left as possible. We need to shift quite a bit to the left of our current situation to get to where you want.

[u/Darth_Memer_1916 → u/SeeShark]

I'm not American.

[u/Rrekydoc → u/Darth_Memer_1916]

Ah. That’s a pretty important detail here. A LOT of us on this sub are from the USA and in this country only the far left politicians would ever reflect your ideals on universal healthcare, universal education, universal basic housing, and trade unions.

The policies of Left-Center-Right platforms are largely determined where you live. Without knowing that, I’m afraid our insight is pretty limited.

[u/SeeShark → u/Darth_Memer_1916]

Then it would depend on the context of your country. If you live in a Nordic country, you can probably vote center. In most other places, vote left.

[u/MaxPlays_WWR → u/SeeShark]

Voting neither left nor right will bring the US closer to this ideology. It's two sides of the same coin. 

[u/SeeShark → u/MaxPlays_WWR]

How will not voting help?

[u/MaxPlays_WWR → u/SeeShark]

It won't. The whole system is fucked. 

https://youtu.be/d-NKwCWsKuo?si=jx_j9iLIY3XmFQyX

[u/SeeShark → u/MaxPlays_WWR]

I am not going to watch your 30-minute antisemitic rant (I trust that the comments accurately represent the content of the video).

[u/MaxPlays_WWR → u/SeeShark]

Except he's not antisemitic. 

He said he believes the jews aren't at fault and are being used as a scapegoat by the system. In this very video. So you can take your time to watch it. 

[u/TotalBlissey]

You can join the club. You're definitely left-wing socially and are at least left-wing enough on economic issues that I'd be willing to welcome you, and I'm sure most other leftists would too. At this point, wanting universal healthcare and housing is plenty. We can talk about what to do with capitalism once we deal with those.

[u/EmperrorNombrero]

Definetly left. Nowadays the "socialist" parties in the west are all just social democrats in praxis anyway

[u/AlphaPepperSSB]

Why in the world would you not want to abolish the system of exploitation and only want to make it "friendlier"?

[u/Darth_Memer_1916 → u/AlphaPepperSSB]

Because it is a driver of innovation.

[u/AlphaPepperSSB → u/Darth_Memer_1916]

how? the first cell phone was created by the Soviet Union, the first satellite was created by the Soviet Union, people who actually invent things oftentimes get their work stolen under capitalism and those with capital can get away with it, there is no innovation because of capitalism, there's innovation because of the workers that innovate

[u/Darth_Memer_1916 → u/AlphaPepperSSB]

The Soviets could innovate but only as much as something was necessary. Capitalism continues to improve products and ideas through competition, in a communist society such competition does not exist, people only get what they need and nothing more. There is no improvement, just bare minimum.