Whats with the leftwing bent of Wrongplanet?

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We're not being invaded anytime soon. We're on friendly relations with every country that we couldn't fight off without assistance from our allies, and that's AFTER downsizing the military to one tenth what it is now.

Uh, Rag, that wasn't something I supported. Uh, Rag, I'm not even a New Yorker. Uh, Rag, I don't make the calls on how New York City spends its money. Uh, Rag, neither does Barrack Obama or Hillary Clinton. Uh, Rag, neither New York City nor New York State calls the shots on how the fed spends its money.

Sounds like a grand idea! Let's start by downsizing and streamlining the US military. Those dudes generate a lot of expenses.

The US military is an oversized monster that isn't nearly effective enough for the insane amounts of money that is put into it.

Then start firing people who don't do their jobs.

He didn't argue that the primary duty of government wasn't to protect citizens from invading forces. His position could easily be stated as "More money than is necessary goes to the US military than is necessary, therefore, if we want to reduce government spending, reducing military spending would be a good place to start". Now with the US having the largest military budget in the world, and using its forces in unnecessary manners, it would seem that none of the claims are wrong.

Well, Griff didn't argue against that, but really, calling all military spending to be necessary spending regardless of anything seems rather foolish. The military is prone to diminishing marginal returns as is everything else. September 11th was not a military thing at all, as it wouldn't matter if we had 50 bazillion tomahawk missiles if we had suicide bombers, it is an intelligence thing, and if you are so concerned about that then we could still cut the military budget and increase the intelligence budget without concern, as our military spending is at least estimated as above 400 billion ignoring spending outside of the department of defense that is related to defense, while the intelligence budget is only 43.5 billion and that includes the defense departments intelligence agencies as well as those related to other agencies, so really, we could increase intelligence to prevent our 9/11s and still cut taxes.

Right-wing politics is all about blind obedience to tradition and the status quo no matter how illogical it is (except for the Libertarians, which are all about making rationalizations for raw greed and egocentrism). So it is obvious why a lot of aspies have a problem with the Right.

yeah, cause anyone who has a different view than you obviously doesn't pay taxes.

I've speculated about this before. Here are the reasons that I think:

1) Left-wingers are typically seen as more intellectual and aspies, because they are thinkers, will follow dominant intellectual culture. This is not due to any NT-ishness, but rather because of intellectual influence.

2) A number of aspies have things to potentially gain from a more left-leaning government, or can sympathize with those who do. We are typically rejected by the dominant culture as weird, or reject it as irrational, and I would estimate that the number of aspies needing aid vs the rest of the population is higher due to our educational issues and conformity problems. So, we either are direct beneficiaries, or see ourselves as kin to direct beneficiaries.

3) We do not see ourselves as belonging to this society, and have a rationalistic tendency, therefore we criticize dominant ideological traits and seek ones we consider rational. This can be a rejection of hierarchical or chaotic market systems for scientific socialism, or a rejection of hierarchical or perverse discrimination systems for a more scientific discrimination system.

I would think that reason #1 is sort of a background trait, and that it goes hand in hand with 3. 2 with a 3ish justification also seems likely amongst those who are less connected to the intellectual climate for whatever reason. Of course a combination of all 3 is not unlikely either.

I dunno, just my thoughts. Any thoughts? Too generic? Bad assumptions? Any biases?

i think both tend to come from a more pragmatist view that most aspies seem to adopt. functionality and logic.

to me, it seems more functional and logical to look at both sides, analyze both, look at what's been done previously and come to a conclusion.

take the middle east:

we have a nice ever expanding history on how we've been involved in the middle east and interfering in their affairs and their governments. they also tend to have longer memories than most americans so while our generation may not even know that iran's government was changed twice by american forces, the iranians most certainly don't forget. likewise, they don't forget every single bad deal we've given to palestine with regards to that whole situation which can easily be portrayed as simply that we don't like muslims and side with the zionist platform first and foremost despite it not being any imperative of our own.

Al-Sadr was getting very popular, last I heard.

We'll be fine if we just let the Iraqis have their civil war and dissociate ourselves from it in the meantime.

Let me explain to you how Al-Qaida works. It works covertly in order to penetrate civilized nations such as ours. It works through sleeper cells. It works through recruiting peaceful Muslim Americans, through extremist mosques which indoctrinate moderate Muslims and fills them with anti-American rage, preceding orders to blow up this or that American landmark. It's not exactly a new thing; radical Muslims have been wreaking terrorist attacks on the U.S. and the rest of the world on a regular basis. No other major religion advocates global terrorism -- only Islam. Islam has a fatwa on America, whether Griff wishes to believe it or not.



I don't think you're aware of the sheer magnitude of money government pours into pork projects every year.
Take a look at these.



One could say precisely the same thing about our public education system, our prison system, and most of the other things big government runs. Michigan alone spends $2 billion on their prisons per year. That's just one state. Compared to that, the U.S. spending $6 billion a year on the war in Iraq is thrifty. But big government has never exactly been a champion of efficiency, in any field. And the larger it gets, the more it wastes. That's why I'm for shrinking the government to a more sane and manageable size.

Last edited by Ragtime on 16 Apr 2008, 3:48 pm, edited 3 times in total.

you need to practice your reading comprehension better: griff said $6 billion per MONTH, not year.


the total cost of the iraq war has exceeded $500 billion and you don't get there by just spending $6 bil./year.

Oh, okay then, I was going to say! And you can practice your reading comprehension too, since Griff isn't the one who said that.

Ya, you're right. America would have gotten founded just as easily if we just sat on our asses and sang Kumbaya.

Why are you people so blind to Islamic terrorist threats? When Al-Qaida promises it has operatives in America, and that it plans to destroy America, why don't you listen? Why must someone be called "conservative" simply for taking threats from terrorists seriously?

Last edited by Ragtime on 16 Apr 2008, 3:53 pm, edited 1 time in total.

17.2 billion is not very much compared to US military spending.


Well, our prison system certainly. Which is why a left-wing government would be better by legalizing soft drugs and allowing many of these people to not be imprisoned. Our public education system just doesn't work well at all. Really though, that still does not mean that the military budget is not bloated.

I did not say that, but to claim that every single dollar of military spending is essential is false. I think you mistook me, perhaps due to my phrasing problem. Frankly, we did not win due to our military competence anyway, we were terribly incompetent.

But it is a lot to throw down the drain! Geez.

those monosyllabic names all look the same to me.

thanks mr. ashcroft.