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(Last Updated on March 25, 2017)
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The best articles.
The Left Call has over 1500 articles articulating a fiery American Left viewpoint. Here are some of the best, organized by topic.
SOCIAL LIBERALISM
What Does It Mean To Be A Liberal?
To be a liberal is to see government as an extension of the community, and therefore a force of good. Waste and corruption do exist within all human created entities, but government is no more inviting or immune to those forces than a corporate board room.
Liberal: What Does It Mean? – The Rise And Fall Of Modern Social Liberalism
I think the best way to answer the question of what it means to be a liberal is to define the main tenets of modern social liberalism. 1. Government as a source of good. 2. Tolerance, respect, compassion and empathy. 3. Rational and reasoned thought. 4. Freedom, liberty, and individual autonomy. 5. Progress.
Taxing The Rich: A Liberal Argument For A Progressive Tax System To Grow The Economy
A dollar is a dollar, right? Well, it is true from a monetary perspective that each dollar is worth, well, a dollar. But the “utility” value of each dollar is not equal, and is entirely dependent on your income level. “Utility is a measure for the degree of happiness or benefit something of value gives you,” says CTLawGuy on DemocraticUnderground. “[T]he more you have of something, the less utility value each additional unit carries. This is called ‘diminishing returns.’”
ECONOMIC INEQUALITY / ECONOMIC JUSTICE
Walmart Is The Corporate Embodiment Of America’s Growing Inequality
[D]eclining union representation in the private workforce has a lot to do with growing inequality. It was a national source of pride to say the largest employer [General Motors] was unionized and paid its workers a living wage with benefits, but that was 50 years ago. It should now be seen as a national source of shame to say the largest employer [Walmart] is not unionized and does not pay its workers a living wage, and in many cases, does not offer benefits.
Economic Inequality Is A Clear And Present Danger To American Democracy
Economic inequality touches everything. From the nutritional benefit of the food one can afford, to the education one has access to, vast inequality in America offers extreme advantages to some, acute obstacles to others. Most of us know this is the case, but it seems some on the Right refuse to acknowledge it, or say we should not talk about it out of a fraudulent fear that it will divide Americans. Well, I hate to break it to you, but we are divided, and ignoring it doesn’t change the fact that people in this country are divided by an immense chasm separating the “haves” and the “have nots.”
The Tasty Pick of American Exceptionalism: Minimum Wage Or Incarceration?
America is exceptional all right, its exceptionally jaded, exceptionally cynical, exceptionally resentful, and exceptionally callous. We are so judgmental of others, so righteous of our own strengths, so high on our own self-worth, we believe we need to be exceptionally tough when it comes to anyone who does not measure up.
HEALTH CARE AS A RIGHT
Republicans Cannot ‘Solve’ Health Care In Good Faith (new)
Republicans must also know any earnest attempt to expand insurance coverage to more Americans, must include a recognition that the only way you pay for this is by taxing the wealthy to subsidize the poor. And Republicans probably also know healthy Americans and unhealthy Americans must exist in the same insurance pool to avoid astronomical premium costs to those who are sick. Republicans ought to know a working health care insurance pool is a pool of greatest possible diversity, something like, say, “Medicare for all.” They must know all of this, right? But to acknowledge these things as truths would cause a cognitive dissonance so painful, they will seek any means, no matter how extreme, just to make it stop.
Canadians Baffled By U.S. Health Care System, And By Extension, ‘Breaking Bad’
The show Breaking Bad is about Walter White, a high school chemistry teacher in Albuquerque, New Mexico, who is diagnosed with lung cancer in the first episode of the series. Because he does not want to be a financial burden to his family, he uses his chemistry skills to produce and sell a super pure methamphetamine, and in the process become “Heisenberg,” his menacing alter ego. During the course of the series, we watch the Walter White character transform from seemingly meek and innocent to astonishingly scheming and rancorous. But it didn’t have to be that way.
We Can’t Have Medicare-for-All Because Conservatives Need a Bogeyman
Medicare is still a tremendously efficient insurance program compared to private insurance. Medicare’s administrative costs (costs not directly related to health services) runs around 2 percent. Compare that to private insurance which has administrative costs running from 10 to 20 percent or sometimes much higher. Explain to me: How is it more efficient to provide health care insurance by a for-profit company compared to a non-profit, low overhead public-run program? The answer should be obvious.
The Cost Of American Health Care: A Personal Story Without The Spin
I’ve worked at the same small company for over a decade making a good middle/upper-middle class wage and, while I used to be covered under the health insurance plan they offered me, when my wife quit her job (which gave her health insurance) to stay home with our new son, I had to consider what the cheapest option was to cover all 3 of us. My company’s health insurance coverage was the obvious choice, since it was great for me alone, but I soon discovered that if I added my wife and child, my company wouldn’t pay anything at all for them. In fact, it would cost me somewhere in the neighborhood of $15k more per year.
POLICE STATE / PRISON-INDUSTRIAL COMPLEX
Prison-Industrial Complex: The Magic Thinking Of America’s ‘Tough On Crime’ Reactionary Types
[T]he war on drugs is a perfect example of failed “tough on crime” policies. Our stance on drugs for over 40 years is not so much intended to fix a problem, as much as it’s meant to extend punitive platitudes, uttered by spineless politicians, to appease the masses. About the same percentage of the population uses drugs now compared to before we declared a war on a substance. So clearly creating a more punitive system, in this case for drug offenders, did nothing to lower the recidivism and use rates.
Prison-Industrial Complex Watch: End Mandatory Minimum Sentences For Non-Violent Drug Offenses
What’s the connection between incarceration and voting? First, if you’ve done your time, you should not exit prison with a limited set of rights. Second, if you were going to limit rights, why voting? Could it be that our prisons disproportionately incarcerate young black males? And well, you know, we have a history of suppressing the black vote in America. I’m just spitballing here.
The Hunger Games Dystopia Is Brewing
[T]here are some who are unconvinced there’s a problem. To some, these victims are not victims at all. To some, the mere fact that police used force is enough evidence that the resulting death was unfortunate, but necessary. But that kind of attitude is dangerous. That kind of attitude leads to a passivity. This is the kind of indifference you’d expect to see in a police state scenario in some fictional dystopic movie like The Hunger Games. Sure, you have your few rabble-rousers, but in large part the population can be separated into the demoralized masses, with the rest falling into the category of sympathizers or even worshippers, those who have nothing but kind words for their aggressive authoritarian overlords.
U.S. Crime Rates 1960-2010: The Facts Might Surprise You
While the 50-year low for murder per 100,000 was in 1962 and 1963 with 4.6 per 100,000, those years were actually down a bit from the rest of the 1960s which ranged from 4.8 to 7.3. What was the 2010 number? – 4.8 per 100,000 – That’s a tie with 1961. Yes, you read that correctly. The murder rate, indexed to population was at a near 50-year low in 2010. Compare that to the worst year, 1980, when the rate was 10.2 per 100,000.
IMMIGRATION
Undocumented Immigration Discretion In A Nation Of Laws (new)
There are laws where discretion is limited, for crimes like murder and rape. But there are also laws where we must allow room as a society to consider circumstances along side our ethical and moral responsibilities. We must understand our punitive actions have human consequences.
Don’t Force ‘Sanctuary Cities’ To Do Fed’s Job (new)
The practice of sanctuary cities complements checks and balances and delegation of power, a notion for which the Framers shared a few words. The Tenth (“state’s rights”) Amendment reads, “The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people.” The federal government has no authority to compel local officials to do their immigration enforcement bidding. Sanctuary cities are a check against the overreach of a powerful federal government, an objective conservatives should laud.
CONSTITUTIONALISM / HUMAN RIGHTS
Constitutional Originalism’s Conceited Intent (new)
A constitution cannot foresee how future governments will wield the sword of tyranny. For this reason, our Constitution exists as the foundation upon which we build a governmental framework, manufactured from our contemporary morals and ideals. Constitutional originalists believe they are calm and serious scholars of constitutional law, free from the shackles of speculation, and immune to the allure of activism. But because it is preposterous to believe one can extract the consensus original intent of the many vague words of the constitution, it follows that originalists fill the gaps with their own interpretive instincts. In other words, originalist judges are no more unaffected by ideology than any other adjudicator, even if they righteously believe they are, which is what makes constitutional originalism particularly insidious.
