Quote from: ElectricGoat on January 25, 2011, 10:08:17 AM

I'll be playing the devil's advocate here, but you'd have to explain to those "lefties" how a "survival of the fittest" world doesn't hurt people, because they see the State as a way to attenuate disparities among the strong and the weak. Convincing people does require some level of empathy, not just using logical fallacies.

But this "survival of the fittest" is just a strawman. The market is collaboration, absence of violence.

Government is the way some people get to use and justify violence to gain privileges over the rest. With the question I am trying to turn the vision that government is there to help, towards a vision that government intervention hurts.

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Again, this is a logical fallacy (more precisely, a straw-man argument), because "lefties" are not advocating dictatorship. They see the State as being made of many people, not just one benevolent dictator.

I did not explain myself or you did not get it. I am not saying lefties want a dictatorship (although some do). I am saying that internally and probably without them knowing they want a democracy (because its the polically correct way of thinking) that does what they want. When you talk to central economic planners (and this is true for right wingers also) the problem is always that the government is not doing exactly what they propose. If only the government did want they propose everything would be dandy. This is what I call the semi-god complex. It feels good for the ego.

Btw, I am talking about authoritarian lefties (social-democrats and so on). I consider myself a lefty.