In post 493, MonkeyMan576 wrote:The problem with the liberal ideology is that it assumes the upper class is out to get the lower class and that class warfare is inevitable. Stop worrying about what other people have and try to fix your own problems.
The idea that liberals just "want to bring the rich down" or whatever really isn't accurate. Maybe that's a fair statement for more far-left people, but there really aren't any of those of importance in the US (not even Sanders). Let me try to explain the way I see it.
There are a lot of factors that increase or reduce how likely you are to succeed in life. If you have bad schools, it lowers the odds you're going to succeed. If you're growing up in poverty, that reduces the odds. If your parents don't have a good education, that makes it harder. If you don't know where your next meal is going to come from, that makes it a lot harder to focus on school if you're a student or to make any kind of long-term planning if you're an adult. If you don't have health care, that reduces your odds of success. If you have to work 60 hours a week working two minimum wage jobs and still can't make rent, that increases the odds of going into debt and reduces the amount of time you have to try to look for a better job or to get some kind of education to improve your situation in life. If you can go to college, it increases your odds of success; if you can go to college without ending up with a huge loan, it increases it more.
None of those things *guarantee* you won't succeed in life, but some percentage of people won't, and the more of those risk factors you have, the higher percentage of people won't make it. Most people, if put in the right situation and given the right resources and the right kind of support, are willing and able to succeed. But there are a number of poverty traps that tend to keep poor people poor, and if you can help people get out of those, they will actually become a lot more productive and society as a whole will be a lot better off. Beyond that, there is always a risk in a capitalist system that something will go terribly wrong in your life and you'll lose everything, and if that happens you'll need some kind of help.
I want us to win just for Yos' inevitable rant alone. -CrashTextDummie