Most people are so binary in their thinking,
and the tenets of “the #left” and those of “the #right” have shifted so much (sometimes even exchanging places) in the last couple of decades,
that I want to write a post titled “Am I on the Right?”
(kind of [like #BrendanOneill did](https://medium.com/@burntoakboy/which-of-these-is-a-right-wing-position-4118046d7765))
listing all the views I have that would be automatically considered left-wing by many people today.
And then perhaps “Am I on the Left?”, too.
A teaser:
* I want abortions to be not only legal but also publicly subsidised
* Ditto about euthanasia
* Ditto about hormone therapy and sex-reassignment surgery
* I am pro same-sex marriage
* I want more and freer migration
* I want the Sate to provide safety nets
* I am against the death penalty
* I want all drugs to be legal for adults (but also regulated)
* I think the State should be completely secular (no official religion, no subsidies for churches, no mentions of god)
* …
@tripu I want more and freer migration
I want the Sate to provide safety nets
Those two are contradictory, like it or not. The rest of the world does not provide a free ride. If almost anyone can come into your utopia and sign up for benefits, you will have several billion people to support. Unless you have actual Fully Automated Luxury Communism (in which case just ship the hardware to wherever those people are coming from) that will not work.
> Those two are contradictory
Not at all. “More and freer” doesn't mean “anyone can enter anytime with no conditions attached”.
Many prosperous countries could admit more migrants and also have a higher positive net impact on the economy.
Countries can impose waiting periods for welfare, reduced benefits, or a combination of both for migrants. Or they can let more of the most productive ones in.
Just a few ideas, it's by no means exhaustive.
I don't understand. I said “more and freer” migration. Not “unlimited” or “completely free”. Of course there are trade-offs and sweet spots. You are criticising a straw man, or someone else's view on this.
/cc @mike805
I haven't laid out my “moral case” here, you don't know what that is.
I just answered to one specific objection, related to the economics of migration (ie, that “more and freer migration” and “the Sate providing safety nets” are “incompatible”).
/cc @mike805
@tripu OK that I agree with. Some sort of "can you contribute?" test. What worries me is unlimited asylum. That is where you get overrun, and some of the "asylum seekers" will be the very people who caused the refugee problem in the first place.
Immigration for skilled people is already pretty open. Yes it's a pain, but it is not impossible.
> What worries me is unlimited asylum
But of course. Who's defending “unlimited” anything? I surely didn't.
> Immigration for skilled people is already pretty open
Where, outside of the Schengen Area (and that benefits “only” 420M people, most from countries that are quite wealthy already), is that?
I guess it depends on what one understand by “pretty open”.
@tripu I agree on all your bullet points except for "no subsidies for churches", churches should have all the same benefits as any other nonprofit so long as they operate as a nonprofit. Being religious should no more disqualify them for subsidies than it should qualify them for it. That should be determined (and granted) based on the same criteria as any other group.