What's with the obsession about "socialism" in conspiracy-circles lately?

a reply to: introvert

Socialist politicians are directly violating the nature of this country's law. "Vote for me and I'll take from those folks over there and give it to you" is no different from purchasing votes. It's called election fraud and it is a felony.

a reply to: introvert

I don't think anyone should be strung up over opinions, but you do realize socialism is all about taking away people's right to choose, right? Just look at ObamaCare. Options are shrinking every day.

originally posted by: burdman30ott6
a reply to: introvert

Socialist politicians are directly violating the nature of this country's law. "Vote for me and I'll take from those folks over there and give it to you" is no different from purchasing votes. It's called election fraud and it is a felony.

It's entirely different and you are being completely absurd.

So I guess we should string em up, huh?

That's the sentence for election fraud, isn't it?

originally posted by: BELIEVERpriest
a reply to: introvert

I don't think anyone should be strung up over opinions, but you do realize socialism is all about taking away people's right to choose, right? Just look at ObamaCare. Options are shrinking every day.

Obamacare...socialism?

Hardly.

Socialism does not require you to buy a product from a private corporate entity or force you to pay a fine.

originally posted by: burdman30ott6

"Vote for me and I'll take from those folks over there and give it to you" is no different from purchasing votes.

Wouldn't promising a huge tax cut be the same thing?

originally posted by: introvert
It's entirely different and you are being completely absurd.

How is it any different at all? In both scenarios you have politicians exchanging favors directly for votes.

originally posted by: Bone75

originally posted by: burdman30ott6

"Vote for me and I'll take from those folks over there and give it to you" is no different from purchasing votes.

Wouldn't promising a huge tax cut be the same thing?

Allowing someone to keep more of their own earnings? Seriously? Are you effing kidding me right now?

a reply to: introvert

Well if the government is reimbursing the private entity, then you're really buying from the government. Obama had a lot of neat tricks to hide the fact that the ACA is really socialism to the core. It is killing competition to the point that monopolies are beginning to form, and that is illegal. So yes, ObamaCare absolutely is socialism.

originally posted by: burdman30ott6

originally posted by: introvert
It's entirely different and you are being completely absurd.

How is it any different at all? In both scenarios you have politicians exchanging favors directly for votes.

No. It is not a direct exchange.

They are making promises in the hopes of getting their votes on election day. Something every politician does.

originally posted by: BELIEVERpriest
a reply to: introvert

Well if the government is reimbursing the private entity, then you're really buying from the government. Obama had a lot of neat tricks to hide the fact that the ACA is really socialism to the core. It is killing competition to the point that monopolies are beginning to form, and that is illegal. So yes, ObamaCare absolutely is socialism.

There is no profit motive in a socialist system. The private entities are allowed to profit off of government money and that is the definition of fascism...the joining of government and corporate power.

Corporate and GOP agents have infiltrated conspiracy circles for years now. They push the whole government is evil/broken thing which many take to heart given the nature of many conspiracy people. Thus the those already skeptical of government get bombarded with confirming propaganda and be come more radical in their thinking.

a reply to: ScoochieMcGroogle

Yes, it's a psyops. A multi-planked psyops
You point out the trend of increasing display of the term ''socialism'' recently in conspiracy circles. I see it as a general trend around here among conservatives. And it is not discussion but as you point out, that the term is a boogyman.
I see little ''push'' from what are considered to be liberals around here in trying to turn conservatives into socialists, but just the opposite. The push back from conservatives is way out of line with any real socialist prosilization.

I see this as being manifest for a number of reason, chiefly of which is the need for the oligarchs to separate the disenfranchised from seeing the real culprits and how they work who are really behind our economic disparities.
This is accomplished by one, the boogyman of socialism, and two the boogyman of the repressive ''government''.
The government is put up to catch all the flack and is conflated with a very very shallow concept of socialism, a socialism that is black balled by it's association with the Communism of the failed Russian experiment.

And much of this is based on a much broader misconception of human consciousness and this several decades old rise of the ''cult of individuality''. This notion that we are all supposed to be autonomous individual people. This idea is fine, but the degree to which it is now carried is a distortion.

We humans, for most of our existence have not been individuals, but rather we have been aspects of tribal consciousness. A person was a member of a tribe and that was that. Some fulfilled the tribal roll of ''water bearer'' others the tribal roll of husbandry, while others the tribal rolls of chiefs and shamans. And there was little concept of self betterment or social advancement. You were what you were and they were what they were. This whole notion of the individual is a very recent occurrence in the span of our species.

Yet now it is heralded as the be all and end all of human existence and those who are seen as not having an ''individual self'' are called sheep and sleepers by those who believe themselves to be individualists. Yet from our historical perspective those masses are in line with history while the individualists are the aberration.

Not that I eschew the idea of individualism, as I have for most of my life striven to be a specific individual. But the extents it is being carried now are completely unbalanced. This is in part due to the more recent liberal upbringing in our society which from birth on up touts the ''your are unique'' you are '' one of a kind'' and ''you are special'' manner in which children are being raised. Oh and let's not forget that old US Army slogan, ''Be all that you can be in the Arrrrmy''

Anyway, the world in which we live and the social and cultural contexts have bloomed in such a manner as to break down the older tribal consciousness simply because those tribes depended upon, each with it's own, single and traditional story lines. You believed what all those around you believed and acted accordingly. You had no choice because if you did, you were just put out of your misery or at best, banished.

But as the world has filled with more people and those people have expanded their old tribal cultures from isolated environments, the world is becoming awash with varying story lines and cultures. The mixing of these story lines and cultural values are creating an exploding complexity of consciousness unlike the world that we know of has ever seen.

This is not new, especially to the oligarchs, those who will turn us back into a feudalist state. They took the early studies and theories of Freud and others and began to manipulate people all the while sending out the message that psychology was a psuedo-science and not to be given any stead.

Couple this with the emerging studies on human consciousness the ability to ''fool'' the masses has itself turned into a science. Advertising for one simple example.

So we have all these people who have come to believe that they are individuals from childhood programing and now think that that individuality is jeopardized by the encroaching power of the state. And though that may be true the deeper truth is that they are not really individuals at all but rather just another sub-set of the larger tribe of sleepers they eschew.

I always remember how the Third Reich called itself the National Socialists Party, even though it had noting to do with socialsim. That title was simply to catch the unwary who might be enticed by the Russian socialist experiment and try to do the same thing in Germany.

So here, socialism is equated with all the totalitarian and authoritarian threats posed by previous regimes that threaten to take way ''our freedoms'' of free speech and free thought, all the while being channeled down just another chute on the way to the pens.

The oligarchs are way ahead of must of us. They even like us to call them the powers that be and think that they are some form of ancient cabal or brotherhood of reptiles when in reality they are nothing more than the captains of industry, those who have gamed the capitalist system for their own wealth and power.

Did I go on too long there?

edit. Hoo boy, I just posted and looked at the page and indeed, I did.

originally posted by: introvert

originally posted by: burdman30ott6

originally posted by: introvert
It's entirely different and you are being completely absurd.

How is it any different at all? In both scenarios you have politicians exchanging favors directly for votes.

No. It is not a direct exchange.

They are making promises in the hopes of getting their votes on election day. Something every politician does.

Crime through a middleman is still criminal.

a reply to: introvert

Sure there's profit motive in socialism. Its called taxation. With no competition, socialist agencies only care about collecting the most money for minimal services in return.

Socialism is fascism. Its designed to turn the majority against a minority. Socialism doesn't work. Its failed time and time again, yet it continues to gain attention every few generations as people lose their sense of personal responsibility.

originally posted by: burdman30ott6

originally posted by: introvert

originally posted by: burdman30ott6

originally posted by: introvert
It's entirely different and you are being completely absurd.

How is it any different at all? In both scenarios you have politicians exchanging favors directly for votes.

No. It is not a direct exchange.

They are making promises in the hopes of getting their votes on election day. Something every politician does.

Crime through a middleman is still criminal.

So you admit it is not a direct exchange. That's a start.

Now can you please show me where the law states that politicians are not legally able to make promises, empty or otherwise, in their campaign tactics?

originally posted by: ScoochieMcGroogle
Why is THAT suddenly a top-priority on the conspiri-internets? I've followed the scene for quite a while (since 2001) and it never was a big topic, until now.

You have a point, but the above is all you should have said.
There are so many people that think a socialist...for instance, is just someone who isn't a Republican, which also means if you think Trump is a dick, and better employed...only perhaps of course....somewhere as far away from the White as possible. In other words, these people will tell you..no insist, that you are a socialist, and automatically you are a hate figure, there is no median, and philanthropy is for the birds, and anybody who does philanthropic deeds is a moulder after themselves, rather that perhaps what they can see as something better than before, or perhaps a better way for the future of mankind..but, can you see what I just did there?
Anyway socialism is just a word, useful but means different things to different people, but usurped by politicians and commentators to become something specific to follow, a bit like..very like, political Conservatism really, stiff ideology in the face of an ever changing world.
So, why does anybody take sides, when the reality is..they all do, or the very most of them do the same basic things, get up and go to work for somebody else, repeat, repeat repeat, to earn this funny thing called money, that for some reason, most everybody in the world needs, no matter what pretentious authoritarian political system you live under.

originally posted by: introvert
There is no profit motive in a socialist system. The private entities are allowed to profit off of government money and that is the definition of fascism...the joining of government and corporate power.

You're entirely backwards. The definition of fascism is the government controlling the private entities and claiming their profits for the government purposes. What you are mistakenly calling "fascism" is corporatism. Socialism is fascism, true capitalism is corporatism.

a reply to: BELIEVERpriest

Sure there's profit motive in socialism. Its called taxation. With no competition, socialist agencies only care about collecting the most money for minimal services in return.

So the founding fathers and the constitution, which specifically allows for the levying of taxes, is socialist?

Interesting!

Socialism is fascism. Its designed to turn the majority against a minority. Socialism doesn't work. Its failed time and time again, yet it continues to gain attention every few generations as people lose their sense of personal responsibility.

What?

Socialism is not fascism.

I think you and ott6 are talking out of your asses.

Are you guys really this uninformed?

a reply to: ScoochieMcGroogle

I think it's because the most common bogeymen won't work when the right wing's in power. It's not believable to say "the President's going to take away your guns!", "Hillary/Obama is going to start WW3!", "the big bad govt's leader is actually the Antichrist!", "the President's a secret Muslim agent!", or any of that crap right now. So they have to go with something that can keep their base amped up & scared.

But don't worry, things will go back to normal once the midterm elections come up. There will be a new Ebola/Mayan Apocalypse/Rapture to worry about and everyone will fearmonger as if the Apocalypse is near. And like clockwork, it will conveniently go away right after the elections are over like it always does.

originally posted by: introvert

originally posted by: burdman30ott6

originally posted by: introvert

originally posted by: burdman30ott6

originally posted by: introvert
It's entirely different and you are being completely absurd.

How is it any different at all? In both scenarios you have politicians exchanging favors directly for votes.

No. It is not a direct exchange.

They are making promises in the hopes of getting their votes on election day. Something every politician does.

Crime through a middleman is still criminal.

So you admit it is not a direct exchange. That's a start.

Now can you please show me where the law states that politicians are not legally able to make promises, empty or otherwise, in their campaign tactics?

No, but by definition, a promise to violate the law is illegal... and purchasing votes using monies not already owned by the seller is absolutely codified as illegal.

www.law.cornell.edu...

Whoever makes or offers to make an expenditure to any person, either to vote or withhold his vote, or to vote for or against any candidate; and

Whoever solicits, accepts, or receives any such expenditure in consideration of his vote or the withholding of his vote—

Shall be fined under this title or imprisoned not more than one year, or both; and if the violation was willful, shall be fined under this title or imprisoned not more than two years, or both.

Hmm, actually "offers to make" could be called a promise. O_o

String 'em up, for not longer than 2 years, of course, per the US statute.

ETA: Damn man, I just realized this statute covers both the politician and the voter, so hell,,, we may need some rope for the socialist voters, too.