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Comment by api | Hacker News Reader

My big fear about right wing politicians is corruption and authoritarian right assaults on women and minorities.

My big fear about left wing politicians is well intentioned stupidity.

That does present the situation grimly. Do you pay the Danegeld to get the former to not do the assault thing? After all, the malicious competent can perhaps be bought. On the other hand, the incompetent could be manipulated by a sufficiently capable intelligence. I'm not one of those, but then again I'm not one of those who can buy the malicious competent either, to say nothing of the unfortunate situation where one ends up with the malicious incompetent - having mistaken malice for unaligned self-interested competence.

Drop the labels, preferred victim groups and excuses for your preferred ideology, heap everything together and you're getting closer to the truth:

My big fear about politicians is corruption, authoritarian tendencies and stupidity

There, done, put a pin in it. There's corrupt politicos on all sides of the spectrum, there's authoritarians on all sides and stupidity seems to be endemic.

It's extremely common that when a right wing government transitions to a left wing government, the left wing government notices it has insane unpayable debt and tries a bunch of desperate things to repay it.

Mamdani had the same problem but was luckily able to negotiate practicable payment plans on NYC's debt.

Also I believe it's much easier to solve well intentioned stupidity than to solve malice.

You do realise the same is true for moves from the left to the right? The left spends until the coffers are empty, gets voted out by those fed up with the miserable state of the economy, the right takes over and brings things back on track through austerity measures, the economy wakes up but austerity is still demanded due to the size of the mess left by the lefties. Those same lefties point at the blooming economy and complain that only the rich get to profit while we live in austerity, vote for us and everyone gets a free beer and pony. People vote the left in, they start spending like crazy until the cycle repeats. Been there, seen it happen several times.

I assume this is Euro centric? In the US it’s been the right that have spent like drunks.

No, it is not euro-centric. The previous US regime also spent like drunks, did you forget about all the stimulus packages which pushed inflation up to almost 10%?

The logic is "left good, right bad". In other places that people here would scoff at it, it is the opposite way around "right good, left bad".

Unfortunately, political tribalism is rife online, and it is as bad here as anywhere else.

That was COVID. Look at the last 30 years. Deficits have gone up faster under Republicans. Trump 2.0 doesn’t have any excuses.

The deficit consistently decreases when democrats are in power and increases when republicans are in power.

> It's extremely common that when a right wing government transitions to a left wing government, the left wing government notices it has insane unpayable debt and tries a bunch of desperate things to repay it.

Meanwhile the right wing opposition keeps pointing fingers and telling that it's the left's (or center's, whatever) fault. Happened multiple times.

They both blame each other for their own incompetence.

They both often continue increasing deficits and spending until they can't.

> Mamdani had the same problem but was luckily able to negotiate practicable payment plans on NYC's debt.

The last right-wing mayor was Bloomberg (I don't know how right-wing Bloomberg really is when he tried running as a Democrat), and that was 13 years ago.

> Also I believe it's much easier to solve well intentioned stupidity than to solve malice.

Well-intentioned stupidity can go on for far longer because people won't want to intervene because of a negative perception when intervening. If there is malice, there isn't a negative perception when intervening.

What part of "Paying 0.055 EUR per GB of traffic sent to French residents" is well-intentioned? It's nothing but a nonsensical shakedown.

Also, left-wing governments are generally as corrupted and freedom-infringing as right-wing governments, at least in Europe.

Please stop pressing that down-vote button on anything outside the desired narrative. What nbajka says is true, corruption is universal. It is also true worldwide, not just in Europe. Corruption knows no ideological boundaries. Power corrupts, politics is about power, those in power sometimes abuse it. Yes, right-wing politicians are sometimes as corrupt as left-wing politicians. Yes, left-wing politicians are sometimes as corrupt as right-wing politicians. There's corrupt centrists as well.

Ah yes the famously intelligent right wing politicians.

They tend to be somewhat more practical and knowledgeable when it comes to pragmatic business and getting stuff done.

The stuff they want to get done might suck though.

They are complete imbeciles on many other issues.

Companies that put profit first and have no ethical boundaries usually grow faster because our economy is built to reward them. Becoming a successful politician takes a lot of money. Selfish and unethical people are more likely to be right wing.

When you put that together it's obvious. Being a bad person leads to getting rich and having strong conservative views, and if you have both you become a right wing politician easily.

Hard to describe the current French government as particularly left wing.

Why do left-wing politicians always get given an out when they do malicious stuff, but the right doesn't? I think all politicians are lying and corrupt scumbags.

I find it astounding that people can apply different rules to one group of politicians because they say things they like. I hold them all to the same standard; I assume they are all lying and corrupt until proven otherwise.

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