One of the strawman arguments that often bugs me is when people say, “Left, Right, it doesn’t matter. They’re both equally bad”. That really grinds my gears because it’s really not true. Like how people dismiss SlotoCash Casino without having ever tried it out. Now, if they were to say that “Politicians, left or right, are equally bad”, or “GOP or DNC, they’re both bad”, there’s a stronger argument.

In the past several years (and most blatantly during COVID), the political establishment has proven itself to think and act in its own interests. Tyrannical overreach, rules for thee but not for me, blatant hypocrisy, waffling on positions, and outright lies have become the status quo for nearly everyone in government across the West.

The political establishment (aptly named “The Swamp”) has proven over and over again that the only thing it can agree on is giving more power to itself at the expense of everyone else. This is true of swamp creatures across the aisle, whether we’re talking about Nancy Pelosi or RINOs like Mitch McConnell.

Even (or perhaps especially) if we step outside the United States, we see the same trend across the globe. Millions of people are protesting against their governments across the globe, and you’ve probably heard neither head nor tail of it; protests in England, France, Canada, Australia are simply being ignored by the establishment and legacy media or outright suppressed when the police have the numbers to do so.

However, let’s step back from the politicians for a moment and talk instead about the ideologies each of these sides are supposed to represent. I will do my best to present Left and Right-wing positions as accurately as possible, but I think it’s pretty obvious that I am a biased commentator. I’m ideologically conservative, and my intent is to express why people who think like me look at Left-wing ideology and reject it.

I think that most people fall fairly neatly into the Left or Right-wing camps. Many who claim themselves to be objective, I’ve found, are usually just ignorant of all politics and lack the investment to actually take an actual, principled stand on any given issue. Usually, these people end line up as Left-wing by default if you were to actually talk to them for more than five minutes. I’ll get back to that, but first, let me present two stark contrasts that I encountered fairly recently reminiscent of the results of Left versus Right-wing ideology.

My Travels

Due to some fairly annoying bureaucratic shenanigans, I was recently booted out of my dorm room at University and had to find new lodgings. Since it’s not practical for me to commute from my parents’ house, I ended up with an apartment and two roommates in a town about fifteen to twenty minutes outside of the University Town by bus.

Thankfully, the housing situation is all sorted now, but something I hadn’t expected was just how much I like the new community I’ve moved into. It’s tiny, with only two buses that pass through hourly and conservative to the extreme. Everyone’s religious, there are families everywhere, there’s lots of nature, and everyone is just so… clean and maintained. Wholesome is the word that comes to mind.

Then I went and visited a large, sprawling city. This is a place that’s immensely desirable to live in. There’s an active nightlife scene, with bars and nightclubs dotted everywhere. Various major tech companies all have offices and research facilities here (Read: High paying jobs). There are stores and malls and a beach that is constantly buzzing with visitors and activity.

And I hate it.

The place is noisy, dirty, and crowded. There’s graffiti everywhere, and a quarter of the population look like junkies. Everything is expensive. The traffic is a nightmare, and I constantly feel on edge when walking the streets.

I guess I should make the small disclaimer that, no, I’m not talking about LA.

My takeaway from visiting both of these places is that the big city is extremely left-wing, both in culture and in politics, while the little town was right-wing in both culture and politics.

After all, politics is upstream from culture. Given the bias to which I have already admitted, I guess it’s no surprise which one I prefer. The question I’ve been building up to this whole time is, why is the big city, with all the money in the world, seem like such a garbage place to live, while the tiny community (I’m am going to call them Big George and Little George from now on) doesn’t? And I think the answer lies in the ideologies that each of them reflects.

Left vs. Right: Fundamentals

If you have ever taken one of those online political compass tests, defining a person’s politics is plotted on a grid, where the vertical axis is Totalitarianism versus Libertarianism, while the horizontal axis is Left vs. Right, on the Left and the right, respectively. Or sometimes they’re replaced with Liberal vs. Conservative, which more accurately represents the distinction.

Someone who is right-wing or conservative is all about traditions and culture. Morality is absolute, and responsibility is the backbone of integrity. Self-sufficiency, individualism and family values are more often than not core values to conservatives. They priorities their families, themselves, and their communities- in that order.

Someone who is left-wing or liberal is usually anti-traditional or rebellious. I know, I know, it’s a stereotype. However, there’s truth to it. Most left-wing positions are the complete opposite of cultural norms. Gender roles, masculinity, the nuclear family, religion, and institutions of power are all things to be criticized and challenged.

In an ideal world, people would look at the various political positions of every ideology and pick the one that they believe makes the most sense. However, humans are not so simple, and rather than voting for whatever economic policies make the most logical sense, people vote for whoever lines up with their worldview, rather than shaping their worldview with the facts of reality.

This difference of viewpoints that are fundamental to each ideology creates a trend of personalities that favors one set of political beliefs while others favor the other. To be clear, the world needs both kinds of people. The world needs Left-Wing mindsets to push boundaries and think outside of the box. The world also needs right-wingers to warn them against reinventing the wheel. There’s a study that shows that the majority of the best entrepreneurs are left-wing, while the best managers are right-wing, and I can believe it.

Accountability, the Left, and the Lack Thereof

The problem with the left-wing worldview is that it often eschews personal responsibility in favor of a “live in the moment” mindset. That kind of mindset might be okay during high school and college, but once you become an adult, you need to grow up, and I think a lot of the most radical left-wingers haven’t accepted that.

You can see this absence of responsibility is nearly every left-wing position. Affirmative action, socialism, and welfare are all economic plans that are intended to remove any sort of personal responsibility from the beneficiaries.

Because of affirmative action, black workers and students may never know if they got the job or their success because they were capable or because of the color of their skin.

Socialism puts the burden of responsibility for taking care of you onto the government so that the average person doesn’t have to work. Who doesn’t want to collect their government food rations from a DMV-Esque institution?

Welfare, while intended as a safety net, incentivizes unemployment and single-motherhood financially. Although intended to help the poor, I think it has unintentionally destroyed black communities by discouraging jobs and encouraging “baby mamas”. During the Civil War, black people were married at a higher rate than white people- so how is it that now 70% of black men grow up without a father?

Let’s not forget abortion. So if you’re not interested in the tax returns (or, you know, the responsibility of caring for a child), you can always just get the baby aborted! What’s a little infanticide for the sake of eighteen years of inconvenience? Don’t make better life choices- just revel in sex and drugs and worry about the consequences later!

Because another idea that seems fundamental to the radical Left is the destruction of the nuclear family. Both Antifa and Black Lives Matter had this as one of their goals, listed on their websites, right up until this became more publicly known, and they removed it. Why do they hate families?

A lot of the justification I’ve read online reads like it was written by people who grew up in a bad home and have a hard time imagining that other people might not actually hate their parents. Whatever the justification is, it’s another responsibility thrown out the window so that the new, strong independent women can go party and drink some more. Right up until they’re forty-five, and realize just how sad and miserable they are.

The left-wing attitude towards Vaccine Mandates, the second amendment, and businesses all follow the same trend. The data shows, for instance, that Covid Vaccines don’t reduce transmission but do reduce the severity of catching Covid. At this point, anyone who wants the vaccine can get it. So why on Earth is the Left insisting that everyone must be mandated?

It’s because the Left seems to despise personal responsibility and freedom. If you are fat, it’s not unhealthy; everyone else is just judgmental. If you decide to not take the vaccine, for whatever reason, then clearly something is wrong with you, and the government must come in and save the day.

“You are being rescued. Please do not resist.” K-2SO, “Rogue One”.

What’s more, this trend of anti-personal responsibility and free choice has bled into other cultural elements. Nearly every time a video game gets released that gets a reputation for being hard, there’s a slew of Leftists crying on blog posts about how all games MUST have an easy mode. Otherwise, the developers are ablest… or something.

They cannot seem to fathom that these games are not made for them, and if they still wish to play these games, then they must either A) Invest the time and effort to actually become good at the game or B) Play a game more suited to what they want to play. But instead of going for that, they insist that the game developers must cater the experience to them, which is stupid.

I don’t like romance movies, so I don’t watch them. I don’t go to the director and demand he or she add robots and laser swords to make their movie more appealing to me. That would be selfish.

And I think “Selfish” perfectly describes Leftism, to a tee. I don’t like working, so the government should just give me money. I don’t want to take care of a baby, so I should just abort it. I don’t want to eat healthily, so everyone else show.