I think you over-dignify yourself as the "sane" side. You believe you can perceive all the flaws in your opponents reasoning, they're obvious to you - but reject the possibility that they feel exactly the same way about you. The humility you expect from them - you aren't displaying it yourself. The situation has far more symmetry than you assert.

The things you describe as political policies - they aren't. "Universal health care" and "minimize gun deaths" are goals, or value systems. You can make excellent pragmatic arguments for why they make sense (e.g. human capital is valuable), but as primary values they're motivated by emotion. Likewise, your perspective of "someone who doesn't work and doesn't contribute to society doesn't deserve govt handouts" does not "make logical sense" - it simply fits your value system, motivated by a sense of righteousness. You might be able to construct logical arguments for it, but let's not kid ourselves that's why you feel that way.

I agree with the overall point, there are plenty of sane people on the left, thank God.

However, I want to defend the idea that some right wing opinions make a lot of logical sense on their own; their being valid does not require right-wing-specific value systems.

Let's take one of the points you're criticizing.

> someone who doesn't work and doesn't contribute to society doesn't deserve govt handouts

Here's the logic: the products and services we enjoy every day are all the product of someone else's work. None appear out of thin air. If they're provided by the government, they are still funded by taxes on the fruit of someone else's work. Why would someone who does not produce anything be entitled to any of it? The basic value behind this point is plain fairness, which everybody agrees on.

That being said, I will concede the above point needs refining and nuance before it can be used as a principle to guide public policy. For instance, it makes sense that society should help people who cannot work because of some handicap. The value here is common decency, which is neither specific to the right or the left.

Another refinement: what about people who are out of work and haven't found their next position? It's probably productive to help them with unemployment benefits: we can bet they will be back on their feet faster if they worry less about immediate money problems. The value here is efficiency. Of course, these benefits should be delivered under certain conditions, because the overall point regarding fairness still stands. They are not entitled to the fruit of someone else's work if they refuse to give back.

So here's the refined point:

In a fair society, people who are able to work but willingly refuse to do so should be not entitled to the fruits of someone else's work. However, people who are unable to work, whether permanently or temporarily, are excluded from this point and may be helped through the means of redistribution.

The final point is maybe a bit centrist, but still fairly right-leaning in its position. It's very logical, and only buttressed by the shared values of fairness, efficiency and common decency.

The refined point (and all preceding points) are not based in any sort of actionable public policy. I would argue that that point is as much based in emotion as the leftist points the parent is talking about. Yes, it sounds good that in a fair society people should not be entitled to the fruits of someone else's work, except if they cannot work themselves. It sounds good to people of both sides. I would not label this as a very conservative viewpoint.

However, that is not what politics is (supposed to be) about. It is supposed to be about actionable policies and their effects. When putting this into an actionable public policy you run into many problems. How are you going to police the "except if they cannot work themselves" part? What are the requirements for "not being able to work"? How lenient are you there? What happens to people that fall through the cracks because of mistakes made in policing that (i.e. people that cannot get a job, but do not qualify for the help)?

How much money does it cost to police that, and what are the costs of not policing it at all? If the cost of policing is higher than the cost of not policing and just accepting that some people will take advantage of the system, is it still a good idea to police?

You can also contribute to society in ways that are not defined as work. What happens to someone that is taking care of children, or taking care of their sick parents? Should they be assisted financially, or not? If so, how do you define that?

Then there is the issue of automation. Perhaps people are not entitled to the fruits of other people's labor. But what about the labor of machines? As more and more jobs get automated, who is entitled to that? Should the owners of the machines reap all of the benefits while the rest of society is left with less and less as more and more jobs get automated away, or should this be divided amongst the total population?

Different people will answer all of these trade-offs in different ways, even if they may agree on the core view. Left-wing and right-wing people generally share most of their core views. Nobody wants more crime, more poverty, etc. The implementation of these policies are where disagreement and discussion happens.

> The refined point (and all preceding points) are not based in any sort of actionable public policy. I would argue that that point is as much based in emotion as the leftist points the parent is talking about. Yes, it sounds good that in a fair society people should not be entitled to the fruits of someone else's work, except if they cannot work themselves. It sounds good to people of both sides. I would not label this as a very conservative viewpoint.

There are countries that 'action' this exact policy. Take Australia for example. Unemployment payments are based on the concept of mutual obligation, where those receiving unemployment benefits must demonstrate that they are searching or training for future employment: https://www.servicesaustralia.gov.au/individuals/topics/mutu...

Those who are unable to work, based on certain medical eligibility criteria, do not have to meet mutual obligation requirements to receive the disability support pension: https://www.servicesaustralia.gov.au/individuals/services/ce...

> You can also contribute to society in ways that are not defined as work. What happens to someone that is taking care of children, or taking care of their sick parents? Should they be assisted financially, or not? If so, how do you define that?

Again, this is a policy question that is answered in Australia and which is implemented administratively via the 'carer payment': https://www.servicesaustralia.gov.au/individuals/services/ce...

I agree with your point that people will fall through the cracks and that there will be mistakes in administering any system like this. But that is simply the nature of a rules-based bureaucratic system, which trade off the ability to handle edge cases with scalability.

The mutual obligation requirement in Australia might not be the best example, with at least 2 issues:

1. It's, in part, a thinly veiled program to transfer public money into the pockets of privately owned "Employment Service Providers"

2. It's offloading the "checking" to other private companies by way of requiring people to apply for a certain number of jobs. Any jobs. Maybe the same jobs you've been rejected for again and again so many times that HR recognizes your identical cover letters coming in every month.

3. Might be an extension of 1, but Employment Service Providers (private, for-profit companies) have the ability to report you to the government and get your payment cancelled for missing certain appointments, with little oversight and no repercussions for errors.

I agree it's far from perfect.

The whole employment services provider model is a weird frankenstein pseudo-market which operates according to bureaucratic rules and artificial 'prices'. And this model requires the bureaucracy to monitor the pseudo-bureaucracy (employment service providers) to ensure they're delivering employment services appropriately. The thinking behind this model is similar to arguments made in favour of privatisation - that private firms will always be more efficient than direct government service provision.

Lots of policy trade-offs to consider: Should government directly provide employment services or is a pseudo-private market more efficient? Should we just drop mutual obligation entirely at the cost of potentially higher structural and hardcore unemployment (and so higher government outlays on transfer payments)?

The welfare systems of most (if not all) Western countries are inspired by this viewpoint, but take fundamentally different trade-offs. They do not action the viewpoint itself - the viewpoint clearly is not an actionable policy. It is also not a conservative viewpoint. I bet if you would ask people from both sides the majority will agree to some extent with the viewpoint.

The devil is in the details. I could take this viewpoint and take several trade-offs on the implementation which would result in either extremely left-wing or extremely right-wing policies.

> In a fair society

That's a central flaw in right-wing ideology. Society has never been fair, and probably never will be. People don't have the same opportunities in life, if nothing else due to the birth lottery. Adopting laissez-faire or "bootstrap" policies doesn't address this problem. As such, it very much is an irrational stance because it is incongruent with reality.

In other words, the right focuses on duty over rights, in extreme cases making welfare punitive. The left goes the other direction, focusing on rights over duty: government handout programs with few stipulations for the receiver.

The difference between the right and left here is that people on the right tend to presume fairness, and the left prescribes fairness - and conversely increasingly presumes oppression.

> the fruits of someone else's work

This is another, ignoring that we're social creatures and only thrived as a species because of co-operation. The left exaggerates in the other direction, pretending like we don't have a selfish gene and nowadays confusing outcome with opportunity. Individualism versus collectivism.

> efficiency

Yet the following are right-wing policies: teaching abstinence, the war on drugs, budget cuts to education... You might be right in some areas, but your definition of efficiency would need to be narrowed down specifically to budgetary efficiency.

In the context of your example, yes, it it more efficient to help someone financially while they're unemployed. It's also more efficient to decriminalise drugs and prostitution, to inform kids about sex and drugs, and to invest in education (as a proxy for success in life).

> common decency

Which has no objective definition by default.

I don't think there is such a thing as a political stance that is free from emotional axioms. At best, the political ideology can be internally consistent, with one point logically flowing from the basic principles, but there is always an external dependency on emotion. That said, there definitely is value in right-wing principles, just as there is in left-wing principles. The key is not becoming too entrenched or foaming at the mouth.

As a conservative, its not that educated conservatives think society is "fair", in that their aren't people with more or less advantages. Rather, we accept that life is "fair enough", and true equality, in the sense that everyone has the exact same capital/life outcomes is worse for society than it is good.

To be more fair, is better, in the sense that rewarding meritocracy is the goal, but even here there is a fundamental unavoidable unfairness born out of the natural talents and genetic predispositions of individuals making them uniquely advantaged for a given sport, field, career, etc.

> You believe you can perceive all the flaws in your opponents reasoning, they're obvious to you - but reject the possibility that they feel exactly the same way about you.

I'm not sure about that. I believe that (calm, observant, not the Yelling-at-you-on-Facebook kind) conservatives today better understand liberals and progressives than the other way round, because the liberal/progressive point of view is overwhelmingly represented in the media, so conservatives are much more exposed to it than any random liberal would be to conservative ideas (unless they specifically seek them out).

It sounds to me like you are doing the exact same thing you accuse "the leftists" of doing - oversimplifying the other sides views without actually considering their benefits and drawbacks, and writing them off as "feel good speech", while positioning your own political (and emotional) views as logical and rational.

The "logical" view you have given ("someone who doesn't work and doesn't contribute to society doesn't deserve govt handouts") is purely an emotional view. "Deserve" has nothing to do with any sort of logic or realism. What are the effects of such a policy? What are the effects on crime, homelessness, unemployment...?

Politics is complicated, there is no absolute right or wrong, and the effects of policies are complex and hard to predict. There are many trade-offs, and a lot of those are non-obvious. People also have different values, and will prefer different trade-offs. That is not necessarily better or worse, just different.

Another point I think is relevant is that I feel many solutions that you've described are easy to understand, quick fixes. In a world that is growing more and more complicated I think people are more prone to gravitate towards the simple.

Another reason, in my opinion for the leftist narrative being so captivating at the moment is that people are delaying adulthood, kids, family more and more. When you are young, or have little, true life experience you don't see why the simple solutions to help all these people wouldn't work. You haven't been in the trenches of life to realise that compromise is needed and that we don't always understand the 2nd or 3rd order effects that our actions will have.

Again all this is my own personal experience but I think it has some bearing on todays political minefield.

It sounds like you're saying "I only see these leftists using extremely shallow reasoning, and they don't understand that they're wrong because they don't look at my/our reasoning beyond a shallow level."

If you would look for more depth in the reasoning of the people you're disagreeing with yourself, you might be surprised at what you might find. The frustration you're expressing to me seems to be very symmetric, occurring on both sides of the spectrum.

I believe I understand their reasoning significantly better than they understand mine. I don't think it's even close to being symmetric. As I said, the left's policies are shallower and easier to understand...when you question as to how a certain policy would ever actually work, the left usually tries to change the subject and call me a bigot insurrectionist (as the leftist crowd behind them cheers "yeah shutup you insurrectionist!"). All without ever discussing the initial question of how something would actually work. Look at AOC's green new deal BS and question-dodging as a perfect example. Then how she relies on sensationalist fluff (shallow-topic) banter as protection....without ever answering any of the initial questions. And then she honestly believes she's a savior sent from above. To me, the levels of tunnel-vision dissolution and lack of grade-school logic is astonishing.

This all leads me to the question if this is all being stirred up on purpose (via the media) as a type of psychological warfare against America. The emotions being purposely poked by the media (race issues, gun rights, etc) don't seem to be purely a ratings grab. But the insane thing about this situation is that the left is so caught up in shallow issues that they label me as a "conspiracy theorist"...I feel like I'm trying to warn the people on the roof of the skyscraper in Independence Day right before it gets blown up by the aliens.

One of the problems of modern political discourse is that the world is now extremely fragmented, and the economic and social theories underpinning this or that position are extremely complex - on all sides.

For example, stuff like gender-related issues on the left have now evolved through hundreds of papers and volumes, which might even make sense if considered sequentially (and if validity is granted to the field at all) but look outright baffling from "the street". There is no possibility of civil dialogue between some intellectual who spent his or her life (over)analysing a complex and niche topic, and an averagely-informed person. It's like having a professor of String Theory discuss that with an undergraduate drop-out: whether the theory is right or wrong, they are just not speaking the same language, and there is not enough time for either side to work on finding a level of complexity that is agreeable to both.

Add to it that social incentives push people towards finding "un-owned niches" and push them into mainstream consciousness even if they are very rare, and you end up with constant arguing on what are basically strawmen (the "immigrant who never works", the "transexual who wants to use this or that toilet", etc etc).

> social incentives push people towards finding "un-owned niches" and push them into mainstream consciousness

Yeah social incentives are so ass-backwards nowadays. People are actually being rewarded for being seen as victims nowadays, so we're seeing people actually compete for the "highest level of victimhood". We literally just had a princess on Oprah telling her sob story about how the other princes and princesses weren't nice enough to her.

It's a race to the bottom that doesn't actually benefit anyone, doesn't include any mention of figuring out how to fix the root cause of the issue, and reduces the seriousness of actual victims of bad circumstance.

Honestly, and this is a real question, do you not see how you are literally doing exactly what you're calling out 'the other side' for doing?

How so? I'm primarily calling them out for spewing their political beliefs in public and I described the lack of awareness they have as they do it (and I touched on the underpinnings as to why I think that lack of awareness exists). How am I doing the "exact" same thing here?

> Conservative policies take a bit more explaining to get their point across, and are much more focused on the logical and realistic side of things.

>...

>Also, the time horizon for conservative viewpoints is often much longer (think about generations in the future and the impact today's decisions will have down the road).

Conservative policy in the US toward climate change right now is "it's a worldwide scientific hoax designed to take down the United States economy." That is not logical or reasonable. It expressly ignores the needs of future generations. Give me oil and economic growth now, externalities be damned.

>"everyone should have world class health care!"

The United States is the about the only western country for which the right-wing views this as illogical and unrealistic. Why? Maybe it is because sick people sometimes have trouble keeping a job, and

>"someone who doesn't work and doesn't contribute to society doesn't deserve govt handouts"

Is that it?

> The United States is the about the only western country for which the right-wing views this as illogical and unrealistic

I never said this wasn't ideal, I'm saying it's unrealistic to snap your fingers and make it happen. I'm saying it sounds good to say this(which is why it's often boasted about by the left), but the process in which the left wants to go about it are completely unrealistic and lead to bigger unrelated long-term issues that they want to sweep under the rug. Kind of like what the boomers did with social security, so we are stuck paying the bill but will never share the benefits of. I'm sure it made for great left-wing politics back then!

> Climate change

I don't think it's a hoax, but I think it's being blown out of proportion to support other left wing agendas (in the form of using it as a vehicle to collect more tax money). I also don't think necessary components are being factored in such as exponential growth of new technologies, and a reduction of the world population in the future (no one's having kids anymore). I also think the left's proposed idea of a "climate tax" will not only not work, but it will lead to even more wealth disparity and overall human suffering. Lets do simple economics: charge a polluting business extra taxes...they pass the extra cost down the supply chain (eventually to consumers)...and they mark up their services by a fixed percentage and use their variable cost as the anchor...which means e.g. a 35% markup leads to more profits for big business, higher expense for consumers, and no actual incentive to cut production levels. Not to mention the inflation triggered by that.

FYI your response is essentially a cookie cutter leftist response, and you're pretty much proving my point. You complain about things using sensational, overly emotional, and somewhat condescending language...but then don't offer any logical solutions to any of the issues. You're essentially making noise that sounds good, but doesn't contain any meaningful or helpful substance.

>Lets do simple economics: charge a polluting business extra taxes...they pass the extra cost down the supply chain (eventually to consumers)...and they mark up their services by a fixed percentage and use their variable cost as the anchor...which means e.g. a 35% markup leads to more profits for big business, higher expense for consumers, and no actual incentive to cut production levels. Not to mention the inflation triggered by that.

That assumes a completely inelastic demand curve, which is unrealistic.

>FYI your response is essentially a cookie cutter leftist response, and you're pretty much proving my point. You complain about things using sensational, overly emotional, and somewhat condescending language

My point was that your post itself was completely condescending and sensationalistic about the left, and I could do the same to you. You should have a bit of introspection about your final paragraph:

>The simple fact is that conservatives have an easier time seeing where the left is coming from as a result of the left's primary policies being shallower and less thought out. These aspects also make it easier for the left to create snarky comments around. Conservatives however, simply don't agree and think it's all a pipe dream. They see the shallowness that the left is not able to. The left on the other hand, not only doesn't understand the right's overarching viewpoints...they also aren't even willing to try to understand where the right is coming from.

That is completely sensationalistic, overly emotional, and extremely condescending.