Liberalism is just Socialism in baby steps

The socialist Norman Thomas said it best:

"The American people will never knowingly adopt Socialism. But under the name of 'liberalism' they will adopt every fragment of the Socialist program, until one day America will be a Socialist nation, without knowing how it happened."

He's also the grandfather of Evan Thomas of Newsweek who said Obama is sort of a god on tingly legged Chris Matthews show.

These white liberals see Obama as a god because they feel that because he's black it will shield there horrible liberal/socialist policies from criticism. This is why these liberals yell racism when you disagree with Obama. What's making them mad is that people are not accepting this. They thought Obamacare would skate through because he's Obama. If you oppose this then your racist or unamerican.

Liberalism is basically Socialism in baby steps. They know if you say it's socialism then it will be rejected out of hand. If you say its liberalism or being progressive then you can try to sell it in baby steps.

For the life of me, I don't know why any American would want big government and socialism. America is based on free enterprise and free markets and big government socialism will destroy that.

When money is concentrated in government hands that means less freedom and liberty for the individual.

Cuba has 11 million people and a 45 billion dollar GDP and people risk their lives to reach America. I don't see too many Americans risking their lives to get to Cuba. Canada has 30 million people and a 1.2 trillion dollar GDP. America has 200 plus million people and a 13 trillion dollar GDP. Why in the world would we want to be socialist?

Liberalism is the antithesis to reason. It's about emotion. They want to control your behavior and the kind of car you drive in the name of saving the planet. They want to control the way healthcare is administered and who it's administered to through government control of the healthcare system. Liberals always appeal to emotion and this is one reason they love Obama. They can yell racism when you are against there horrible policies.

I remember debating a liberal about the global economy. He said, Americans don't need anymore TV's or video games. He said they had enough of those things. This is because a liberal doesn't understand the concept of freedom and liberty. If I want to buy 100 TV's and 500 video games with my money then that's my business. Liberals want you to live by their rules and standards. This is why liberals love big government.

Big government = more control over the individual. Less government = more control and more liberty for the individual. Liberals can't stand individual control because they think you should goosestep behind the collective. The Founders of this country new this was flawed because everyone walks to the beat of a different drummer. So what Obama wants for the collective will be different from the next person. So this country is based on the dictates of ones own conscience not the dictates of Obama and the liberals.

[edit on 17-8-2009 by Matrix Rising]

This is the very thing I have been warning people not to buy into. This is divisive and wholly inaccurate rhetoric aimed at stirring those that are fellow “true believers’ to anger, all the while ruffling the feathers of your political “enemies.”

It is saber rattling at it’s worst because it does so under the guise of patriotism and is dripping with disdain for anyone who disagrees with your particular brand of Americanism. Hide behind the flag if you wish but there are those among who will not be afraid and will speak truth to lies.

Yes, a socialist did say the things you claim....so what? This is not new or surprising and it is certainly not evidence that all those who have “liberal” ideas are socialists, nor is it proof that socialism is in and of itself an inherently evil political philosophy. While it is not my preferred form of governance, it is not as you claim “the antithesis to reason,” and anyone who would espouse such and opinion is either very closed minded or very ignorant. I’ll make no claim to know which better describes you.Whether you realize it or not, this paragraph is so filled with race baiting and contempt it would be laughable if it were not instead sad to know that you are, in fact, serious. I am a conservative, a veteran, an have been a registered Republican for nearly 20 years, so I’m not afraid of you claiming that I am a liberal, but the idea that men and women who support Obama are hiding a socialist agenda behind race is insulting. You should know better, but if you do not, you should be ashamed. If you believe that we still have free markets then you have not learned anything here at ATS. The Federal Reserve and our current financial policies have abandoned any pretense that America still has a “free market” economy. Yet, those that support the corporate hegemony which benefits from the Federal Reserve and the illegal IRS system are always the first to wave the banner of free markets. Again, you should know better.
Your little diatribe here is an example of something based on emotion rather than fact. No one is trying to control what kind of car you drive, but they are trying to be responsible by encouraging car manufacturers to realize that their actions to have an impact beyond the point of initial sale. By encouraging industry to provide a better/cleaner/ and safer product no one has been hurt, but yet you act like child from whom someone has taken a favorite toy.

You may buy 1000 TV’s and 5 million video games, but as long as they are all tuned to fox news you will only know what the Right MSM wants you to know. There are opposing views, that does not mean that they are right or wrong, simply that reasonable minds may differ in opinion without one or the other being labeled as evil.

Big Government is not the answer, but no Government but the one supported by corporate interest is no better than the “liberal” one you so vocally oppose.

Please understand that historically speaking the country goes through cycles of both liberal and conservative prevailing attitudes. Just because you can quote a socialist and are upset that your view is not the one prevailing currently, doesn’t mean that you should give in to the temptation to paint all those that disagree with you with such a broad brush stroke, or you may find that it is you that has been painted into the corner.

-Peace

OP, I would like YOU to define socialism, and tell me why you don't like it.

If you are against socialism than you are against social security.

I'd be happy to take your social security checks since if you are
sincere about being anti-socialism you would not want them.

Unless you put your money where your mouth is you are being insincere.
And all your rantings about socialism is just dung beetle behavior
and you are rolling a big ball of turd concepts that add up to
one big pile of BS.

How you live your life says who you are-concepts and isms don't matter.

You are like a person who says "I don't eat chocolate."
While chewing on a snickers.
The result is snickering at the BS.

Norman Thomas was a socialist. Of course you'd expect him to predict that everyone would one day be a socialist. Do bees make honey?

In fact, there are both differences and similarities between liberals and socialists.

Most liberals still believe in a capitalist economy, or at least a capitalist economy with sufficient regulations to curb its most egregious abuses. Most socialists do not.

That's just for starters.

It's the practice of the right to label anybody left of center a socialist. It's a tactic meant to scare people out of their political positions through fear of the "s" word.

I'm quaking in my boots.

BTW: Canada is not a socialist country. Neither is England. They both have socialized health care but they have capitalist economies.

[edit on 18-8-2009 by Sestias]

reply to post by Electricneo

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You can have my social security. I won't qualify for it for another 20 years and in 20 years there won't be any.

Socialism does not work. Name a country where true socialism works. You won't find one. Market oriented communism works, such as in China, socialism, not having the hammer of the state enforcing policy is destined to fail, despite all the choruses of "We are the World" and "Imagine" you would like to chant with your buddys, after you've finished your drum beating and incense burning.

Socialism especially does not work in a pluralistic society. Hell, even Sweden is moving away from hard-core socialism. Why? They have had spikes in immigration and in a heterogenous society there are simply too great of differences between people to enforce that level of social contract.

The US is far too diverse a nation to embrace socialism. The folks who live in Montana are not going to support being in a social contract with the folks who live in San Francisco. Socialism at its essence requires the productive to subsidize the unproductive. The people who make good life choices to subsidize those who make poor ones. In my opinion, it is absolutely immoral.

One of the things that has been perverted in modern political discourse is the definition of Liberal. 100 years ago a Liberal was essentially a Libertarian. Today, liberal=socialist. Now you may not like the term socialist, but the left in America, at least those who publically set the agenda are indeed socialists.

You want to live in a socialist society? Go ahead and start a commune or join one. Oh I forgot, all of the beautiful communes of the 60's have shut down. Yerts abandoned, farms left untended. They were shut down because all of the folks went to work on Wall St. They went to the Street because they were sick of eating lousy food and wearing hemp pants.

The only thing of mine you have a "right" is for me to leave you alone. Anything else that the government takes from me to give to you is theft, plain and simple.

reply to post by dolphinfan

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Good points.

Liberalism is socialism in baby steps.

The socialist realized they couldn't push their agenda under socialism so they use terms like liberals and progressives.

This is idiotic in America. Why would we want to be a socialist country? Why would we want to give that much power to a corrupt government that waste and spends trillions of dollars?

Liberalism is about control and is truly anti-freedom and liberty. They think that you should live according to their liberalism and not your own conscious.

This is why Obama said in a radio interview in 2001 that the Constitution is fundamentally flawed because it restrains government and it doesn't talk about redistribution of wealth.

Anyone who says the Constitution is fundamentally flawed because it restrains government has the makings of a dictator.

The Founders restrained government because they didn't want any man or government telling people how to live. They thought that should be left up to the individual.

Liberals want to put the collective before the individual. This is a recipe for disaster because everyone will try to control the collective according to their ideology.

The collective thought that guides America is the Declaration of Independence. We don't need Obama or anyone else trying to control peoples lives through redistribution of wealth and big government.

I remember debating liberals on Huffington Post about Simon Cowell from American Idol. They reported that FOX was going to pay Cowell 100 million a year to stay on Idol.

The liberals lost it.

They said,"He shouldn't make that much money" "Nobody is worth that much" "This is what's wrong with our country."

Liberals don't care that American Idol makes close to a billion a year and Simon is a big reason for that.

So if FOX wants to pay 100 million to Cowell then why should liberals care? That's between FOX and Simon. This is freedom and liberty. The ability to contract out your labor because you own it.

Liberals would be happy if they gave Cowell 20 million and gave the rest to government to buy more gulfstream jets and throw the money down a black hole.

Liberals don't realize when they talk about redistribution of wealth and regulating pay, that's not freedom or liberty. That's just control and it's anti-freedom.

[edit on 18-8-2009 by Matrix Rising]

Don't be counting the $$$ just yet. Social Security is a going to be a short lived scheme (just like socialism). It's going to be bankrupt soon. Socialism can't sustain itself in a free society. Neither can social security.

I find it curious that when Bush sr. raised taxes, remember him saying "no new taxes" and reneging on the promise? Where were the anti socialist then. But now that a colored liberal is taking practically the same economic approach; it's fear the socialist take over.

Socialist....please...any entrepreneur not afraid to get his hands dirty can still make a fortune in America. That's not Socialism.

The free enterprise system still works great in America. It's called Capitalism for God sake.

This sudden cry of socialism is just idealogical hypocrisy.

And this copy and paste from the Limbaugh letter is getting so tiresome.







[edit on 18-8-2009 by whaaa]

[edit on 18-8-2009 by whaaa]

This eagerness to define yourself and others, whether it be socialist, fascist, republican, democrat, et cetera, is only another way the PTB win.
because we are too occupied with pointing the finger of "wrong" at others, and trying to justify why you are "right".

It's stupid, don't you see that?... they win, and always will win aainst a fragmented society.

So, go ahead, continue to tell others why their ideals or specific brand of society is wrong, and continue thinking you're right about it, and they will continue to opress, vaccinate, wiretap. In other words, they will win this time, next time and every time, because we continue to do their work, we continue to fragment ourselves, that's all they need. They have NOTHNG to worry about, we will always continue to defeat ourselves.

Unite or fail ladies, everything else is academic.

Wow, well this should make for a good discussion.

Let's jump in shall we .

As far as liberalism equaling socialism. That's not true. Simply because what you defined as liberalism isn't. This whole Liberal Vs Conservative fiasco you all see on TV and in the media in general is false.

It's just a very intelligently run soap opera. Where all the actors know and love each other, but when the cameras are one, it's fight time.

I'm a Libertarian myself, and some would call that Liberalism at it's finest, I disagree. I think that big government is a necessity, but not FEDERAL government. Municipal government is what's needed, and alot of it.

A system where all people in a particular city or town, make the decisions that effect them, instead of a few making decisions for all. In any case Socialism actually works to tell you the truth.

There's just a secret that's been kept from you. It only works IF you don't have a totalitarian aspect build into the system. If everything is owned by everyone, and everybody gets a share of the profits, where's the problem?

Now I know some will think I'm crazy and attempt to refute what I have said above, but it' simply true. All of these systems look great on paper, yet we have the one which works the least well.

Strange how the world is isn't it?

~Keeper

reply to post by dolphinfan

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Every smart society is eclectic.
You take the best from wherever.
I don't want this society to be socialist however there are some
good things our democracy can integrate.

Martin Luther King Jr said
"It's socialism for big corporations and capitalism for the poor."

Given the recent bailouts it's easy to see that this has never been as true
as it is today.

So, let me get this straight. Being black is benefiting a politician from the USA...right?

...

Seriously?

reply to post by Matrix Rising

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Yes and socialism is the mother of communism. Scary aint it?
Woder if Obama or the next president will be America's Hitler?

reply to post by Melissa101

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I do think it will be easy for a Hitler type figure to come to power in America.

This is because Americans are blinded by ideology on both the left and the right.

It was obvious that Iraq would be a disaster but Bush went in with an ideology that was looking for a reason to take out Saddam. Reason could not convince Bush he was wrong.

It's the same with Obama and the Liberals. They are blinded by ideology and no matter how much you try to use reason to show universal health care, redistribution of wealth and big government is horrible for this country they can't see it. They are blinded by ideology. In the midst of stimulus and bailouts we don't need a trillion dollar takeover of the health care system by government.

The thing that will be the downfall of America is ideology. People are democrats and republicans before there Americans.

It's clear that this is socialism. The Foundation of this country is the antithesis of socialism. Socialism is about the collective. America is about the liberty of the individual. Under socialism you have group think. Under America you have liberty of conscious.

With America you have a collective thought that's crystallized in The Declaration of Independence.

With Socialism you get government control of healthcare, over 33 Czars, government control of car companies, government telling you what cars to drive and how to use energy, government regulating pay, government wasting and spending trillions of dollars, government burying us in debt, government lying and more. This is because under socialism government is too big and has too much control over our lives.

reply to post by Phlynx

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I dont know where you are from and therefore I dont know what your constitution states, but the constitution of the U.S.A. is very clear about the limiting power of the U.S. federal government.

I am willing to pass up a social security check if it means I will be keeping my freedom to choose what I do with my life and my money...

In every essence of the phrase... Less is more...

[edit on 20-8-2009 by open_eyeballs]