Redistribution

[DrYouth]

How about this:

Progressives are very vocal about their worries regarding the poor and disenfranchised and often propose redistribution as a solution.
Problem: This may support hostile dependence and disempowerment of the poor and disenfranchised.

Conservatives worry about this less... and propose redistribution towards their preferred goals - i.e. military spending, policing vices - tough on crime programs (read incarceration), , national security, combatting terrorism.
Problem: This may also be unhelpful to the poor and disenfranchised... especially policing vices.

Libertarians worry about the poor and disenfranchised an in between amount... but feel the best way to support this group is to support their civil liberties and get government out of the way. They rarely propose redistribution.

Liberals are essentially in between Progressives and Libertarians.

[DBTrek]

Or ... or ... the poor and disenfranchised are useful tools for all ideologies to manipulate in an effort to reach their own goals. Those unwilling to exploit them for political leverage are easily painted as “not caring” about the poor, when in actuality, they simply reuse to play the puppeteer-the-poor-for-power game.

[DrYouth]

Or ... or ... the poor and disenfranchised are useful tools for all ideologies to manipulate in an effort to reach their own goals. Those unwilling to exploit them for political leverage are easily painted as “not caring” about the poor, when in actuality, they simply reuse to play the puppeteer-the-poor-for-power game.

Well I would agree that those vying for power play on these sympathies in an effort to achieve power.
That would be as true on the left and the right.

For example a politician may appeal to rightist sympathies (tough on crime, policing vices, military strength) for the purposes of getting power, just as a politician may appeal to leftist sympathies of redistribution for the poor, or reaching out to disenfranchised groups (gay marriage)...
Neither one may necessarily strongly or even weakly hold these sympathies themselves...

It's the groups that they appeal to are who I'm referring to.

[heydaralon]

I wish there was a way to steal from the poor and give to the really poor. Its all relative though. For instance, Warren Buffett has more money than 4 middle class families put together! Does that make him poor? Of course not. He is still richer than 75% of people in Africa.

[Speaker to Animals]

Ooh. What if we just seized all the assets of wealthy liberals so that we can liquidate everything and distribute it out to the starving Africans? It's what they would want.

[heydaralon]

In the last 4 years, Jeff Bezos made over 10,000 dollars. That is not the exact amount, it is probably a lot more than that, but I'm guessing it was at least that. Think about that for a second. For that kind of money, you could build ten solar powered water pumps in a Central African Village. The Africans could then wait until the NGO left, and dismantle the pumps, and sell the scrap metal. The profits from the scrap metal could be used to buy food, a new donkey, or perhaps a cache of AK47's. This is a good thing, because many times wild boars or zebras will venture into the village and rut in the yam patches, destroying valuable crops. The Africans could shoot these animals and keep their crops safe. This is a small example of Malcolm Gladwell's fascinating new book Blink: How Africans are able to Poach, and I don't mean eggs. Bezos initiated what I like to call the Shutterfly Effect. By shuttering an African Window (with solar panels), he is opening an African door. Even Ananzi the trickster spider god could not anticipate the possibilities that occur when a new windmill is built, or when Amazon prime offers free membership for an entire year.

[DBTrek]

The Dutch think MH has a great idea.

[DrYouth]

The Dutch think MH has a great idea.

Redistributing Rolex watches to the State... on the street taxation as it were.... lol