Does anyone ever check all the boxes on any given ideology though?

I certainly don't check all the boxes for social democrats. Many of my beliefs align more with liberals/libertarians than social democrats, e.g. such as views on drug policy. My views on Israel is probably closer to Norwegian conservatives than the left.

Labels don't need to be perfect, they just need to be practical. Even if you don't align with libertarians in all things, it seems like a pragmatic label for the majority of your political view points. At least from what I can discern from this discussion.

I also very much support immigration control. I am definitely not a globalist. Then again... how many actually support free immigration?

Not all conservatives need to care about religion. In Europe, conservatives seldom care that much about religion. In Scandinavia conservatism is not much associated with religion. In fact the party representing the interests of Christians in Norway is considered left of the Conservatives in Norway.. Why? Because the Christian party is more leftist in the economic policy. They support more aid to the poor. More development aid and is very family focused. Conservatives are primarily business oriented. Often supporting the economic elite. Same deal with Tories in the Britain, not so much about support religion as supporting the financial elite.

Sure smart people can more easily adapt. But then again being smart is not really your choice. It is usually an outcome of early childhood. A combination of upbringing and genetics. Things you have very little choice in.

Sure you can do the "life isn't fair," retort. And I haven't said it is. But you are the one who suggests that capitalism is good because it is fair. Because those who work more, get more. Eh... no they don't. All sorts of people get rewarded for things they had no choice in. It isn't a meritocracy. Certainly not when you consider the outsized role of your family, wealth and connections. Instead I would claim social democracy is much closer to meritocracy as your outcome is much less dependent on your parents and inherited wealth.

You are a little bit sneaky with your capital and risk argument. If you got two people with the same capital and one invests it and risk loosing it, then it is only fair that he or she gets a bigger reward for a successful investment than whomever just sticks the money in a bank account.

However your comparison makes less sense when you say compare a person with zero dollars and one with 1 billion dollars. It becomes bizzare to suggest the one with a billion takes on more risk. That implies that it is somehow safer to be poor. Of course not. You are playing with semantics here. The one with one billion has a higher risk of loosing the money. It is kind of hard to loose money you don't have.

Whomever has more capital, has a clear advantage over the person who doesn't, risk or not.

Sure lets look at Stripe and Gravity. Reality is that there was likely people who invested in Stripe, who did not have to do anything but offer their money. They did not have to work hard to get a reward. Sure they would have to analyze risk and reward. But that work is not changed with the size of your investment. If I had invested $100 or $100 000 in Stripe I would have to do similar analysis. The difference is that the one with $100 000 capital at their disposal would reap a far bigger reward for the same investment in time and effort as me. Clearly capital amplifes your ability to make money.

Having lots of capital will almost always triump over having lots of talent. We tend to focus on exceptional talent who got lucky and rich. Most people of talent never get rich.

I don't see why you regard higher taxes for the rich as punishmen. When you help a blind person over the road, are you being punished for being able to see? Many people of affluence will be happe to be able to contribute to the society they live in. That the strong carries the heavier burden seems like a practical arrangement.

I served in the army and there you carry those injured or disabled in different way. You contribute to make your team succeed. A team is not stronger than its weakest link. The strong help the weaker. If you response is: "Oh, I don't feel like helping the weaker," then you will get kicked out of the military with that attitude.

A nation is a team. Those most able carry those less able. Sure mabe you think that is unfair. Why should you carry more just because you are stronger or have not get shot in the leg?

Because your team doesn't win otherwise. It is a pratical arrangement. Same deal in a sport competition. If you teammate cannot do their job properly due to injury or other problems, you try to compensate with extra effort. You don't go "Oh this isn't fair!! I don't want to do extra work! Why am I getting punished for my teammate getting injured."

Viewing contributing extra to the benefit of your team or your country as punishment is IMHO a selfish and entitled attitude.

We can agree partly on education. But here I think the market is mostly at fault. In Sweden when their privatized high schools, they ended up with 6x as many hairdressers are they needed. When the public sector ran the show, they made sure to offer primarily the types of study that Swedish society needed.

Private educators in contrast care more about what they can easily sell. Many young girls are easy to sell hair dressing to. They don't have a clear idea of supply and demand at that age. They are not economists. Private educators then ruthlessly exploit this to make a quick buck and educate young people to unemployment.

I don't care about what is fair, but about practical reality. Practical reality is that a lot of young people are not great at picking studies. Hence I think government must take some responsiblity in regulating the supply of studies. They must make sure student places for education or society needs is in ample supply while what we don't need has reduced supply. The market cannot really solve that problem. Privaate colleges don't care what skills the market needs. It care about what education they can most easily sell to prosepctive students.

I don't see the problem with free college, depending on what you mean. Here in Norway we don't pay college tuiton but we got to pay to live. Housing and food is not free. You get loans and stipends for that.

Thus you cannot waste that time. It costs you money.

I did in fact think paying for college might be better. I used to think fellow Norwegian students wasted their student time. I blamed social democracy.

Boy was I wrong. When i got to the US I realized that social democracy had nothing to do with it. Most Americans I met didn't really pay it themselves. Their parents did, and they seemed to care less about vasting their parents money than many cared about wasting government money at home.

A key problem I saw in the US, was how Americans are socialized to be beyound optimistic and self confident. They don't understand the limits of their own ability or what is possible. That can be a good thing in many cases. No doubt it has contributed to the success of places like Silicon Valley. But it also contributes to people vasting enormous sums on edducation they never had a chance to complete.

It isn't really a question about free or not free college but the whole system. If you just hand out any amount of money for free for people to study at any university, then you create a disaster. Rather I think you can supply tuition free government education, which is tailored to meet the need of society.

If people want to waste money on private education, let them but don't make it free for them. You should not get free college to study some BS degree nobody needs.