Re: Faye Kane, unused brain self-delusional loudmouth
It's funny, though, how us Greenies actually check out as having the highest IQs. We're a leftie bunch. Not surprisingly, the lowest IQs are among the BNP voters. Seems the left/right divide corresponds to the high/low scale of IQ testing.
http://www.theguardian.com/politics/blog/2008/nov/03/greenpolitics-liberaldemocrats
Most modern democracies are a mix of capitalism and socialism. Even that flagship of the capitalist world, the USA, has a system of food stamps and social care.
Similarly, a nation like Norway, who has high taxes and high public spending still allows a socially responsible form of capitalism.
If you look at the Corruption Perceptions Index, you'll see that Norwegians also feel themselves to be in one of the most democratic nations in the world. So their socialism is a democratic constitutional consensus. They pay tons of taxes, and they have one of the best healthcare systems in the world, and have the lowest crime rates and the lowest levels of poverty. They're not exactly "lefties", though.
In some parts of Switzerland, they have a system of Direct Democracy, where the citizens vote on decisions in a system of weekly referenda polls. They still vote to raise their own taxes when they feel they need to.
I wouldn't exactly call Switzerland and Norway anti-capitalist, though! They're not struggling nations. Sometimes the socialist thing is the best thing, whether you're a capitalist or not. Utah have recently found out that simply housing the poor - ie giving them houses unconditionally, forever - actually works out lower in cost for the taxpayer, when given the crime, health, and other costs of homelessness. Also, welfare concepts that seem almost communist, such as Guaranteed Basic Income, have been championed by right-wingers like Sarah Palin and even my personal arch-enemy, Milton Friedman himself.
Being smart can certainly help one become rich. So can confidence, a posh accent, and good posture, if truth be told. But being smart doesn't necessarily mean one desires to be wealthy. Many of the world's top scientists (and lefties) prefer to give what they can to humanity and do what they enjoy rather than accumulate wealth.
Studies have shown that the more wealth one accumulates, even in a divisive unequal system where the odds are stacked in your favour from the start, it is a psychological phenomenon that one will always believe it is due to one's own skill and intelligence.
http://nymag.com/news/features/money-brain-2012-7/
There is very little evidence sociologically, psychologically, politically, or economically, that you are smart because you are right wing, or even that your success is due to your own intelligence.