Grok Build is open source

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.

My point is that it's all fake math. If we're killing people by not funding aid programs, then we're killing even more by not funding more. How much are you personally sending to Africa? How much more could you be sending? Imagine if you borrowed to do it? You can't do the math that way. While tragic, those people have no demand on our treasury any more than Vladimir Putin does. We may be less benevolent than we once were. We are also much further in debt than we once were -- to the point of threatening the Republic's viability. The US didn't kill a half million children any more than France, or Spain, or Great Britian, or China did by not sending the same money. It's all fake math.