This will be a long one, but I've probably made less than 10 posts within the last 3 years. So bear with me.
I have never had a problem with other people making more money than me.
It's easy to look at someone who makes millions of dollars a year and imagine how easy it would be to make just 100K a year. Heck, the millionaire probably wouldn't even notice 100K missing from his bank would he? At least, that's how many people feel.
But economics isn't that simple. And the reality is that when people become spiteful, they also become reckless. In trying to "redistribute" wealth, taxes have gone up for the middle and lower classes as well. After all, what are a few small tax increases for the poor and middle class if it means the rich will pay more in taxes? I think it's easier to forgive the taxes taken out of your paycheck when you're receiving some form of government aid. I believe this is mostly true for students who have obtained loans from the government. There's a good reason why people begin to move more towards the right as they make more money, it's because we're ultimately looking out for ourselves.
I guess my point is, I would like to see taxes go down for the middle and lower classes. But when people are so focused on the rich, they're willing to burn everyone if it means they can watch the elite's bank accounts go down.
The mentality of many progressives (but not all) is that if the elite weren't making as much, there would be more money for everyone else. And if everyone else is making/saving more money, then everyone will be better off. But simultaneously, progressives constantly state that the rich will be the ones to pay for "almost" the entirety of social programs. So what would actually happen if we redistribute wealth to the point where elite classes are almost non-existent? This is why I laugh when people refer to capitalism as "trickle down" economics. It's just a scary phrase people throw around to make poor and middle class people feel like they're only receiving scraps from more successful people. But when the government takes money from the rich and hands it out to the poor... well I'll use an analogy. Is it better for a rich man to give you scraps off his own plate or for the government to take scraps off his plate and give them to you?
I'm not bashing liberal economic policies per se, but the ideology of supporters for wealth redistribution tends to be similar to what I outlined above. I'm just saying that the reason why so many people are progressive is based on spite and leads to reckless behavior and hypocritical rhetoric. To be fair, I think all parties are filled mostly with people who's economics views are based primarily off of emotions, self-interest, and personal preference. There are less emotional reasons and selfless reasons why people support liberalism and/or socialism. Some of them are fairly rational and others are completely irrational. But again, this is true for any economic ideology isn't it?
But, since this topic is about SJWs, I suppose I should try to incorporate them into this post.
Has anyone ever heard of a conservative, republican, or even capitalist SJW? Why do SJWs lean so far left and how do they differ from standard, non-SJW, progressives? If anyone wants to discuss the "why", feel free to do so. For brevity, I'll skip to how SJWs differ from standard progressives.
Because of the two party system in America, we have liberals who wantless political restrictions and more economic restrictions. Conservatives, if you take what they say at face value and ignore their actions, want more political restrictions and less economic restrictions. This is where you end up with the libertarian party who wants less restrictions both politically and economically. But where do SJWs stand? In some regards, they fit the definition of liberal perfectly. But in other regards, they support more political restrictions. That's not to say they're a liberal-conservative hybrid (like libertarians), because the ways in which they want less political freedoms differ's greatly from the ways in which conservatives want political freedoms. In hindsight, this is all useless information - but it is quite interesting. It stays because it's already been typed.
"So what are the differences already you rambling idiot?!?!" you might be asking. If that's the case, you stuck around to read/skim through my post. Thank you! So let's address the differences between progressives and regressives.
From what I can tell, progressives are the ones who coined the term "regressive" as a way to distance themselves from other liberals. I'm not sure how true this is, but I've noticed the term circulating in progressive circles before I noticed any conservatives using the term. Progressives are typically strong advocates for freedom of speech - all speech. (Conservatives, slightly less so when it comes to things such as flag burnings [US flag] or even QUESTIONING the perks/opinions of veterans and active military personnel) And even though progressives and liberals are both concerned with wealth redistribution between classes, regressives also focus on race and gender.
But the other attributes that separate regressives from progressives also applies to differences between regressives and everyone else. Most other groups can see the flaws in their sources, their arguments, and their solutions. These ranges from bad data regarding Micheal Brown and the incredibly sloppy and fallacious wage gap myths, to red herrings such as "Check your privilege" (What does my privilege have to do with other people's supposed "underprivilege"? Nothing.), to total hypocrisy such as demanding more segregation and actions based on race and gender even though regressives complain that segregation against these groups is what caused problems to begin with.
What's the most interesting is how these groups ended up becoming the very monsters they claimed to fight against. But, I feel I've already typed enough. More on that later... maybe.
