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Hardkill
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Posts posted by Hardkill
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7 minutes ago, Daniel Balan said:Thats not correct. Study many countries in Eastern Europe, countries from the former USSR and you will notice that the left there is more corrupt and evil than the right in those countries. When Leo says that the left is more developed than the right that is solely explicit for the US. Leo says that propgresives are more developed than conservatives. In the countries of the former ussr actually the right is more progressive than the left. In my country the most progressive party in the parliament is center-right. And they advocate for small government.
I'd argue that there are more stage yellow politicians at centre right than at centre left. The centre left seem to be stuck at stage green, whereas stage Yellow is like a natural evolution towards less welfare and a more individualistic approach towards society as the pendulum swings once again towards individualism.
Limiting welfare and having more limited government intervention backfires in the long-run.
Mixed economies like in the Nordic countries have the most progressive, most fair, and most sustainable type of economies for everyone. Central European countries, Western European countries, Australia, New Zealand, Canada, Taiwan, Singapore, Japan, and South Korea have the second 2nd fairest and 2nd most sustainable types of economies.
The kind of Left that you are talking about in the former USSR was far-left in economics, whereby there was state ownership, central planning, and redistribution of EVERYTHING. That doesn't well work for long either. Plus, the USSR's extreme left-wing regime had no liberal democracy, was authoritarian with a one-party rule, implemented censorship, had coercive security services, and had top-down bureaucracy; the promised council democracy never materialized.
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1 hour ago, Leo Gura said:A centrist will certainly be a capitalist. They can't think far enough outside the box to be anything else.
Being anti-capitalist either requires serious brainwashing or serious thinking. And no one is doing serious thinking.
Wait, I just realized something. If today's liberals in America are centrists who rather keep the status quo/capitalism, and the broad middle or moderates are still the largest percentage of people in America, then does that mean that today's liberals in America are the largest percentage of people in America?
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2 minutes ago, Leo Gura said:I think so.
Wow.
I kinda thought that. However, that's gotta be extremely rare given how contradictory conservatism and stage Yellow seem to be with each other.
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On 10/5/2025 at 11:23 PM, Leo Gura said:Sure
Can a right-winger or even a center-right person with good principles and healthy values be stage Yellow as well?
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33 minutes ago, Joel3102 said:It’s funny how many of the former Republican never-Trumpers like The Bulwark, David Frum, Kinzinger etc are far more steadfast in their Trump resistance than these “both sides” liberals like Tapper have become.
Yeah! It is very interesting even though they are conservative-leaning individuals with healthy and good Blue values and Orange.
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18 minutes ago, Leo Gura said:Some liberals are solid Orange. Although in today's radicalized culture war environment a solid Orange person is likely to get pulled into the anti-woke or right-wing liberterian camp. Example would be Owen Cook or Joe Rogan.
If you are solid Orange today then you are probably pro-Trump, which makes it hard to call you a liberal. But in practice Trump is quite neoliberal in his policies.
The best example of liberals today is CNN news achors like Jake Trapper or Anderson Cooper.
I've had it with news anchors like Jake Tapper or Anderson Cooper for not doing nearly enough to warn the people about the dangers of Trump and their constant bothsideism.
I am also disgusted with Owen Cook and Joe Rogan.
That means that everyone associated with Chorus and Pod Save America must have a lot more Green in them than all of the abovementioned names.
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5 minutes ago, Leo Gura said:Liberals are Orange/Green. Leftists are more solid Green.
Liberals have not outgrow Orange. They still cling to Orange. Solid Green is too radical for them.
Okay, so liberals aren’t solid Orange either, but are like in an area that’s transitioning from Orange to Green.
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3 hours ago, Leo Gura said:Today there is a clear difference between liberals (centerists) and leftists (progressives).
The difference is that liberals are mostly okay with the status quo/captialism and leftists want radical systemic changes to capitalism, sometimes going as far as socialism but not always that far.
It is a spectrum. "Liberal" is a term co-opted by leftists to call out neoliberal capitalists and centrists.
Most liberals are too moderate and most leftists are too radical and utopian. So the correct place to be is somewhere in the middle of liberal and leftist.
But liberalism and progressivism are both examples of stage Green, whereas the status quo/capitalism in America is primarily stage Orange.
So, you mean that liberals are center-left, whereas progressives are solid leftists?
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Hey Leo,
About six years ago you wrote:
On 8/24/2019 at 3:07 PM, Leo Gura said:I would say progressives are usually more left than liberals and progressives really care about making structural reforms to the system without too much concern for maintaining the old norms. One of those old norms is the dogma that capitalism is the only viable system and an absolute good.
To me a progressive cares most about making serious changes to society to improve it. A progressive sees not making enough change as more dangerous than making too much change. Which is the polar opposite of a conservative. A progressive has a vision for how great society could be if we get our shit together and act big as a unit.
I’ve been thinking about that after studying how the terms liberal and progressive have evolved.
Historically, figures like TR and Wilson called themselves Progressives, while FDR branded himself a Liberal—yet FDR’s reforms were even more transformative and “progressive” in practice.
Today the boundary between the two feels even blurrier: mainstream liberalism dominates U.S. politics, while progressivism functions as a reformist minority inside it.
Do you still view progressivism as that deeper willingness to redesign the entire system rather than merely improve it?
And how do you distinguish progressivism from liberalism now—from a developmental or consciousness perspective?
Has your view shifted as politics has evolved since you first said that?
Would like to hear your updated take
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2 hours ago, Leo Gura said:That's pretty light.
And Trump could pardon him if he pays Trump a lot of money and/or makes friends with him.
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39 minutes ago, kguirnela said:I get that, but what if he's been told the answer so many times? Also who is he listening to, pragmatic progressives like David Pakman, Thom Hartmann, Hutch etc, or some blackpill leftists like TYT, Secular Talk, Vaush etc? I'm also asking in a general sense. Ik I'm hypocritical to an extent but at the same time if I don't try to lower the content I consume or at least try to learn how the government works, I'm gonna end up a blackpill liberal. Does this make sense to you or I need to clarify more
These days, I've been listening much more to pragmatic progressives like David Pakman, Pod Save America, BTC, Thom Hartmann, Hutch, IRI, etc. I still hate-watch TYT and Secular Talk, which I know I gotta stop doing.
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2 hours ago, Husseinisdoingfine said:Republicans have both the House of Representatives and Senate, and yet they can't pass a budget bill. The bill to fund the government failed in the senate of all places, which is how the shutdown happened at all, where the Republicans have a comfortable lead of 53 out of 100 seats.
You would expect the bill to fail in the house, where the Republican's majority is very slim, but no, it failed in the Senate.
Edit: Never-mind, it turns out that according to the constitution, 60 votes are needed for a budget, not simply a majority.
I was wrong and stand corrected.
This is partially the Democrats fault, its both parties fault.
I'd be very careful with your "bothsideism" if I were you.
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I am glad the Democrats didn't let the funding for this tyrannical government continue. Hopefully it lasts for weeks.
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9 minutes ago, Leo Gura said:Of course!
He will not leave office peacefully. He will attempt to hijack the whole government. They are working on it every day.
He will not hold back. And as the left pushes back more, he will double-down in his power-grab.
America is going full MAGA dictatorship. MAGA is too stupid not to try it.
Key insight: MAGA is too stupid to not create a dictatorship. They cannot help themselves.
As someone once told me before: Canada is looking real good now.
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12 hours ago, Elliott said:The stat you just qouted me posting says the opposite.
How so?
12 hours ago, kguirnela said:Are you saying local elections don't matter??
I didn't say that they don't, but the electorate is just not the same.
Here's a quote from Dan Pfieffer about this:
"As many of you know, Democrats are the party of high-propensity voters. As data from Catalist, a Democratic analytics firm, shows: the more frequently someone votes, the more likely they are to vote Democratic.
That means as overall turnout increases, the additional, less-frequent voters who enter the electorate tend to lean Republican. In 2024, those voters broke for Trump — which explains how Biden could be trailing Trump in the polls even as Democrats were winning down-ballot races in red states like Kentucky."
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1 hour ago, Elliott said:It's typically democrats that do better in presidential elections compared to other elections.
"2022 midterm example: A Pew Research Center report found that in the 2022 midterms, a higher percentage of 2020 Trump voters (71%) turned out compared to 2020 Biden voters (67%)"
Yeah, well not so much anymore. They lost to Trump and the GOP in 2016, they barely beat them in 2020 when they should’ve killed them in a landslide, and they lost to them again in 2024.
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5 minutes ago, Elliott said:It's in the bag
Newsweek
Map Shows Where Democrats Are Overperforming in Special Elections
Sep 10, 2025 — Special election results, some of which have seen Democrats overperform Harris by 50 points or more,
Again, special elections don't have a lot of those dumb, low-information, and less engaged voters like in presidential elections.
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4 hours ago, Elliott said:What damage? 'Republican' has been damaged, 'Democratic' has been strengthened by the overt republican corruption.
Democrats have been winning in red districts.
It's not about talent, democrats win on policy, it's republicans only way to win is by smoke and mirrors shows.
The Democratic brand is still more damaged than the Republican brand, sadly. So even though many people dislike the GOP, even more dislike the Democrats.
Before the 2024 election year, I thought that the Democrats’ strong performance in special elections, midterms, and off-year elections was a good sign for their chances in 2024. However, it’s clear to me now that the electorate in special elections, midterms, and off-year races is too different from the general electorate in presidential elections.
Presidential general elections bring out a much higher percentage of low-information, less engaged, and less politically developed voters than special, midterm, or off-year elections do. I don’t see how Democrats can win over enough of those voters when so many are too misinformed, too disengaged, or too deeply influenced by right-wing and alternative media.
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It's still not clear that Newsom can pull it off.
What if the damage to the Democratic brand has been so great that they never want to elect another Democrat for president again, no matter how talented any Democrat out there is?
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Some Leftists are already freaking out about this:
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48 minutes ago, Raze said:The top issues are healthcare, inflation, and economy. Democrats still have healthcare, so really all that matters is if people continue being unsatisfied with the economy and start to blame Trump more and think democrats could do better.
So, what do you think about what David Pakman is saying?
He's already interviewed many establishment/moderate Democratic politicians and says that none of them have been willing to learn how to be good at doing interviews in independent and alternative media. I worry that if Democrats don't fix their credibility, messaging, and media strategy problems soon, then the majority of Americans may never believe in electing any Democrat for president, may never be able to stop the radical right courts, and may never win back control of Congress, except for maybe just the House.
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10 minutes ago, Mayonnaise said:@Leo Gura What do you think it will take for the majority of our society to elevate past toxic orange? how long do you think it will take? Also i know this is kind of a random way of thinking about it, but if God is infinity, then wouldn't it have to be included for a "timeline" or something for society to be toxic orange/ blue or red , etc. as a necessity to be included within that infinity? (but if thats the case, then at some point things will have to shift to other stages too) what do you think?
I think that another economic depression and/or another World War or some extreme collapse of our country maybe the very best shot of getting the past this toxic orange.
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7 minutes ago, Leo Gura said:I'm talking about today's left in America.
White supremacist, racist, sexist, homophobic, transphobic, xenophobic, Islamophobic.
Kirk was all of those things.
Learn what those term actually mean, not just as memes.
Even though Lenin was a Hard Leftist he was still fundamentally a conservative. He was never a true liberal or progressive, correct?
in Society, Politics, Government, Environment, Current Events
Posted
There actually isn't “Mammoth debt” in many of those countries, and debt level alone doesn’t tell you whether a welfare state is doomed.
On standard gross-debt measures, the Nordics are generally moderate by rich-country standards (Norway and Denmark are low; Sweden is mid-range; Finland is higher). Check the IMF WEO dashboard for current ratios rather than memes.
Norway actually runs a giant sovereign wealth fund (~NOK 19.6–20+ trillion in 2025), which supports its public finances. That’s the opposite of “unsustainable.” Even though Singapore has high gross debt, its government has a strong net asset position and actually budgets a recurring revenue line from investment returns (NIRC ~3.5% of GDP in recent years).
Furthermore, interest burden matters more than just the stock. OECD data show debt-service costs have risen with rates, but the squeeze is concentrated in a handful of large borrowers; many smaller, high-trust/high-tax states still carry low-interest bills relative to GDP. Sustainability is about servicing costs vs. tax capacity and growth.
Moreover, countries like Sweden have a public pension with an automatic balancing mechanism (ABM) that adjusts indexation/benefits to keep the system solvent—one reason its “big welfare” doesn’t implode when demographics or markets shift.
Inflation isn't solely caused by giant deficit spending. It happens when the supply of goods and/or services is too low in proportion to the demand for such goods and/or services.
What developed countries need to do is protect the corporate base, raise and equalize capital-income taxes at the top, broaden VAT/carbon/land bases with rebates, enforce hard, and pair it with cost-curve reforms in health/pensions and pro-growth housing/productivity moves.