Liberal/Conservative areas

[Tequila]

No-one wants pizza. This is why right-wing parties dominate across Europe. With the exception of Denmark, who took on right-wing immigration policies.

[Minister Of Silly Walks]

I like pizza. Gluten free is essential.

[Parts]

I like pizza. Gluten free is essential.

I like mine with extra gluten 

[Minister Of Silly Walks]

Tequila, most of your assumptions about socialists are incorrect. Clueless, in fact. At least two of us (Odeon and I) would be a lot worse off under socialism, but we recognize the human rights of those less privileged than ourselves and would love to live in a fairer society.

I will try to keep this relatively brief, it would be very easy to end up writing a “War and Peace” length epic post.

You want people at all levels of society to respect the property of those better off than themselves. You want law and order. You want borders and armed forces and police and a legal system and prisons. Those things are societal constructs.

Peel away the layers of society and you do not have any innate right to property (including any money that you manage to accumulate). All you have is what you are able to accumulate and/or take, and defend until someone stronger takes it off you or kills you. Intrinsic rights to property are also a societal construct.

Thatcher famously said “there is no society”. When people like Thatcher say things like that, what they really mean is that they only want the elements of society that benefit them, and they don’t want the elements of society that benefit those less well off than themselves. In fact, they want those less well off than themselves to work to protect what they perceive as the “rights” of the privileged.

Tax isn’t theft. Tax is a small price to pay for the benefits that living in a society brings you. In fact, being expected to pay a lot of tax generally means that you’ve done a lot better out of society than many others, and you should be grateful. It goes back to the idea of an implied “social contract”.

When people like Odeon and Walkie and myself say that we want policies that benefit those less well off in society, this is branded socialism. The reality is that most of what we are talking about is not literally socialism, but we get sick of explaining that to idiots and so we proudly adopt the label. A lot like Bernie Sanders has done.

[Tequila]

I like pizza. Gluten free is essential.

Then that's you. You wouldn't if you understood what I meant.

[Minister Of Silly Walks]

I like pizza. Gluten free is essential.

Then that's you. You wouldn't if you understood what I meant.

Well I could eat gluten, but then I'd get nausea and pass a lot of wind. Better for me to stick to gluten free for everyone's sake.

Also, speaking in code doesn't make you clever.

[Tequila]

Keep ordering our pizza or we hurt your family.

[odeon]

Keep ordering our pizza or we hurt your family.

It's a tree horse wanting to accommodate socialism pizza in flower bed arrangements.

Oh, I'm sorry. I thought you liked random word salads.

[Tequila]

It's sex abuse. You approve of it if you ignore it. You ignore it, so you like Arab immigrants raping teenagers. With a lot of SD supporters it's family that's involved. Same with a lot of the support for Wilders.

You say anything to Labour here about me? You pay.

[odeon]

Willful options care much for grassy knoll leftists in substance clouds.

This is fun. I can see why you do it.

[Tequila]

Word salad.

[odeon]

Yes. Isn't that what you wanted?

[Minister Of Silly Walks]

Socialism is really about taking things away from people that aren't theirs. Some state intervention is necessary for a functioning state, and I like things like a national health system and a welfare state, which were inventions of the Liberals in this country, not Labour. Labour took the credit. But I am mostly for minimal regulation and low taxation.

Bold mine.

Outside of a society, possessions are merely territory or things that you are able to make, take or claim and then defend. Think of a “beach master” elephant seal, with his tract of sand and his harem of females, defending what is “his” with nothing more than 3 or 4 tonnes of fat and muscle. There's no elephant seal 911 he can call and say "hey, some big fat bastard just lumbered onto my beach and shagged one of my sheilas".

Many mammals and birds claim, mark, patrol and protect a section of territory. There is no natural “right” to that land, that territory. Only what they are strong enough to claim and protect.
 
Humans, on the other hand, cooperate and form societies and within those societies we recognize that people have various rights including property rights. We even have police forces and judicial systems and armed forces to defend the defined rights of people within a society. The institutions that we have in place to protect things like property rights come at a cost, and society as a whole pays that cost. And society chooses to respect your right to accumulate property and $$$$.

This is the social contract in action. Your imagined property rights and financial rights only exist within the structure of society. Without society, it’s the law of the jungle. And in return for what the social contract gives you, you give something back so that everyone who agrees to be part of a society and abide by the laws of society shares some of the benefits of that society.
What the political centre, under the guise of neoliberalism, has been doing for the past few decades is gradually dismantling the “giving something back” side of the social contract. It’s dog eat dog trying to survive if you are not one of the privileged. But they get to keep what they like about the social contract, the institutions that protect their wealth and privilege.

That shit won’t last forever.

[Walkie]

^ very well put! 

I've got a cartoon pic of an elephant seal calling 911 stuck in my head now