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Growing up?

2021-01-27

So, as I've been converting this little corner of mine to geminispace, I've been glancing at past entries to see where the conversion is working and where it's breaking down.

There's some significant breakage in the past when I used to add more html, but whatever. Who's reading that anyway, except for me and some web spiders?

Beyond the breakage, though, I see a lot of anger and some attitudes that I not only no longer feel, I'm actually embarrassed by.

I've gone from a pretty convinced libertarian to what is probably closer to a democratic socialist.

A lot of that attitude change has actually happened fairly recently. Maybe the last 2 or 3 years, and was really kicked into high gear during 2020 with the pandemic and police protests. Libertarianism assumes a lot of people. The argument to cut taxes (and the social programs that they fund) is usually backed by the idea that people should be able to fund the charities that they support, and that where the government no longer offers services, society will stand up and care for their own by creating their own safety nets without government oversight.

Yeah. I call bullshit.

If nothing else, 2020 showed that most people (all conservatives, I see no evidence to the contrary) have no interest in helping their fellows and are only concerned with their own wellbeing.

Witness the empty water and toilet paper shelves during the pandemic. No reason at all for that except to make sure that you have more than you need and screw anybody else.

How about wearing masks? It's the simplest possible thing to do to help society, but a huge chunk of the country (including so-called Christians) refuse to make the smallest effort to accomodate those at most risk.

So, basically, where I once thought that people could be trusted to take care of each other, I see now that unrestricted capitalism is greed. It's designed to benefit a tiny few at the expense of the rest.

I can see why I bought into that when I was younger, but I feel like I've done some growing and moved beyond the selfishness.