[b112]

If you're not going to call California 'left wing', I wonder how many states in the US you'd call left wing? It seems fairly left wing to me, having visited a lot. EG, spending 4+ months there a year, for several years.

Note that I'm not saying many of the polices are wrong, just that they're US labeled 'left wing'.

Prop 13 I now see did change how taxation for schools was handled, so thanks for that info. I frankly support the logic. Old people being priced out of their homes is a real thing, and terrible. Still, it's the implied variability of income source which is what "funding from the lottery" implies. It grates on me.

[seanmcdirmid]

I tied it depends on your bias? California is pretty capitalistic, the social safety net is still pretty light, elected leaders still look out for business interests rather than the people, and the people would stop electing them if they did otherwise. California only looks left wing compared to Texas, to the much of the world California looks pretty right wing, especially if you didn’t know it just got worse from there. Capitalists don’t flock to California because of the socialism.

I’m all for funding schools at the state or even national level and eliminating district inequality based on the price of housing. However, prop 13 creates huge unfair distortions in the tax base, where some people are paying super low taxes and other people are paying super high taxes, for the same property. Old millionaires who bought their home decades ago get a huge tax break and a struggling young family who just bought basically subsidize them. It’s the ultimate of ick. It’s definitely a great way to push the birth rate down.

[b112]

The "rest of the world" doesn't use left/right the way the US does. The lines between the US's two parties are gibberish and make no sense to us, comparatively.

EG, the stances taken by both your parties aren't actual left/right, but "whatever we feel like" left/right. That said, this is why I asked you:

"If you're not going to call California 'left wing', I wonder how many states in the US you'd call left wing?". You haven't answered that. Instead, you've said much of the world might consider it "right wing", but that's basically the entire US. From Canada's perspective, and I presume much of Europe, the US is just "right wing with some shades of difference".

I realise we may be talking cross purpose here, but again... if California isn't left wing, who is? Are you only going to list 1 or 2 states as 'left wing', compared to California? It has what might be considered left wing policies, a lot of consumer protection, environmental law, and more, all things which are often either California first, or California early-adopts.

Part of the word problem here is, is that capitalism =! left/right. Here's an example, although a weird one.

In Canada, we have market controlled agricultural products. Supply management. We do this, so that farmers can make a reasonable profit, and thereby ensuring that food is available without wild supply side-issues. It's been a problem in the past. It's a problem for the US. Here, we manage it pre-market side. You know, we plan things.

In the US, which makes quite a bit of noise about this, there have been multiple "Whole Herd Buyouts", the US Federal government bought out entire herds to reduce amount of milk on the market.

https://www.nytimes.com/1986/03/23/nyregion/us-offers-dairym...

https://www.fsa.usda.gov/Internet/FSA_File/1_2_overview_brow...

It's happened over and over again. Beyond that, the US government buys enormous amounts of US milk, makes cheese out of it, and stores it in those massive caves in Utah or where ever. This cheese is also given to the poor, "government cheese" as a form of welfare.

The end result? Both methods are manipulating markets, both methods are controlling the price. In the US, billions of taxpayer's money is used to ensure farmers don't go bankrupt, by artificially inflating the market price of milk on the open market.

In Canada. We said "Hmm. Why spend billions doing this, interfering with markets, when we can just set up control at the front for a few million?". After all, in both cases it is what an American would call "socialism". Government controlled market interference. In the US, you see, the government colludes to force milk prices higher.

It's all optics, but the interference is precisely the same.

Another example is the US subprime mortgage crisis, which affected the entire planet.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Subprime_mortgage_crisis

This wasn't caused by right or left, but by decades of gradual lessening of policies by both right and left, both sides wanting reduced red tape and restrictions on lending. Both wanting to get more homes into the hands of people.

And it was a "right" wing president which orchestrated the bailout.

Again, not regulating markets at the pre-market stage, and then turning around and spending 1000s of times the taxpayer money to deal with it post market, is still market control. It's just "dealing with insane suffering, and catastrophe" after the fact, instead of before.

So, when I hear someone say a US "this or that" is socialist or not, I become a bit baffled. Because the US does socialism 100% all of the time, it's just that it waits until the last minute. It still does it, regardless.

Like I said, I'm meandering and preaching and on a soap box here, but my point is that US political views don't make any sense or map in a sensible way to the rest of the world. It's all right/wrong, on/off, yes/no, no nuance. I think the greatest gift the rest of the world has, is more than two parties, new parties that come and go.

Because it's either "socialist or not", or "left wing or not" and this sort of thing.

The truth?

Is much more nuanced.

Again, sorry for the rant.