Brace Yourselves! Americans Aged 18-29 Have A More Favorable Response To Socialism Than To Capitali

Originally posted by randomname
as long as capitalists keep exploiting people to further accumulate wealth, people will be thrown to socialism.

If govt. does not have the power to auction off such powers then no it will not be thrown into socialism

Interesting, one side accuses the other of being "brainwashed". I was never taught anything about Socialism/Communism beyond "They Bad, We Good" when I was growing up. Most of the people my age were taught the same. So no, public school doesn't have anything to do with this. Kids are still taught socialism is bad in most schools. I didn't learn anything about it until I picked up a book and read it myself. Perhaps because of the fall of the USSR there isn't as much pressure to teach the old "Better dead than red" ideology.

reply to post by Wrabbit2000


'Rich' is a four letter word...

$200,000 net is rich. $200,000 gross while owning your own business is not.

Coal production went up every year since Obama took office and only dropped in this last year. Then again, coal miners aren't threatening to quit if Obama is elected...however, they're being threatened that their jobs will end if it happens.

reply to post by links234


$200,000 is rich. I'm glad you've made your position and point clear. I've asked several questions though...and you've answered every last one of them with yet more questions of your own and no answers at all. This is the first reply where you didn't answer 100% with evasions or questions yourself.

I'll patiently wait...probably forever...to have my previous questions answered. After all, I engaged in the debate because I found those questions worth asking. You don't have to answer, of course.....and I don't need to keep wasting time with non-replies either. I wasted hours this morning on someone with this garbage...I'm not doing it twice in a day.

(Sets up lounge chair to wait)

It has been that way for countless generations. It is a natural part of the aging and learning cycle of life.

As the old saying goes. If you are not a liberal when you are young, you have no heart. If you are not a conservative when you are old, you have no brain.

People in the sub 30 mark have usually lived most of their life relatively sheltered. If they have children, they are most likely young. They have a good job made possible by the education that their parents bought them. They do not understand the harsh realities of the world. They see all these people that are suffering and they can’t comprehend that it is a part of life. They say to themselves that there is plenty, all we need to do is share it. So they try to make sense of it by saying to themselves that someone else must be at fault. It’s called a coping mechanism. It’s helps them deny reality because they can’t deal with it.

When they grow older, and get hit in the gut by life a few times. When they have to pick themselves off the floor by their own two hands. When the see their children make stupid decisions and one or so of them kill themselves doing something stupid. When someone close to them is killed senselessly by a drug crazed maniac wanting money for another hit. When they see their friends passing away one by one. When they start feeling out of place in their own home. When all of life’s harsh realities come crashing down on you. That is when your political and world views change.

The ones that hang around on this board are mostly the former. People that are so full of themselves, and their righteousness, that they can’t see straight.

I know that in 10 or 20 years, the people that are spewing this stuff now, will look back and wonder what the hell they was thinking when they typed what they are typing now.

That is the basis behind the midlife crises that every old fogy keeps talking about. The ones that can’t handle it unusually end up trying to deny reality and end up doing something stupid and getting themselves killed, or almost killed. You got to let them do what they are going to do until they finally burn themselves out and make that hard landing that everyone does sooner or later.

Young people in the cities are more likely to lean left than people out in the country. The people in the country are not sheltered by the structured society of the city. They know more people of all ages. They can see the complete lifecycle of a family at a lot earlier age than the isolated family in the city. Their interaction with even their own grandparents is relatively limited.

Most young people in the city only have their own family as reference. And fellow pupils of the same class grade in school. They don’t have a tendency to interact much with fellow students that are several years older or younger. There is almost like a cast system in most schools. You progress as you grow older. The younger are your subordinates. Not equals.

In the country, they tend to run together in groups based on geography, not age. The 90 year old grandpa takes his 15 year old grandson and his grandson’s 8 year old friend from down the road out to go fishing, or hunting for squirrels. The young child gets access to information about the lessons of life that will shape his view of the world to a world view better fitting a person many years his senor. The access to people that have already went through life’s troubles help you prepare for such problems and get through them with less problems.


I am fully aware that the young wiper snappers on this board will all say that I am full of #@$.

Just wait a few years, and I know that when you look back on things, your view of the situation will be quite a bit different. The problem is, by then, will it be too late?

Life is not fair. It never will be.
Do not dismiss the wisdom of your elders. They were not stupid. They went through the same social struggles you are going through. They also made the wrong choices and suffered the consequences. They learned their lesson and fixed their mistakes. Don’t look back and say that they were just heartless for what they finally done and ignore the lessons of the past. Don’t repeat their mistakes.

And if you think I have a cruel or insensitive view of the world…. Well, based on that old saying at the beginning of my post about the liberal/conservative, heart/brain thing. I guess I have no heart. Because I was never a liberal.

reply to post by Wrabbit2000


I've already calmed myself down and lost some interest but I'll do what I can with what questions I can find.

Which of those systems your talking about would you want to see implemented and how would that go about being done in the modern America?

I would love to see some form of social democracy take over this country through the voting power of the poeple. The realization and understanding that we're stronger as a nation, as a nation, and not as individuals that just happen to live in the same geographic location. I've never suggested it would be fast. Peaceful, meaningful change never is.

In terms of European Socialism as a whole?? Our system may be failing (and it is) but go ask Spain, Greece, Portugal, Italy and Germany how that E.U. and Euro-Socialist system is working out?

I feel I sufficiently answered this already through pointing out that the EU took the idea of austerity being better than economic stimulus as the US has. As it's turned out, the US is doing better for our route of spending instead of cutting.

Most of your other questions seem to be generally rhetorical so I didn't and won't bother asking them unless you specifically request such. I'm sure you're a pretty nice guy but you and I appear to have directly opposing viewpoints, I don't want you to feel that I think any less of you for making money or having the ideas that you do.

reply to post by ModernAcademia


They also have a more rational view on homosexuals, immigrants, taxes, healthcare....you name it.

Whenever I see the old men in the GOP talking about the evil gays and the dirty immigrants, I take comfort in the fact knowing that nature has a way of dealing with outdated thinking. The old men will die and along with them their outdated ideas.

Change is inevitable, sometimes you just have to wait for the old guard to die out for it to take place.

Originally posted by antonia
Interesting, one side accuses the other of being "brainwashed". I was never taught anything about Socialism/Communism beyond "They Bad, We Good" when I was growing up. Most of the people my age were taught the same. So no, public school doesn't have anything to do with this. Kids are still taught socialism is bad in most schools. I didn't learn anything about it until I picked up a book and read it myself. Perhaps because of the fall of the USSR there isn't as much pressure to teach the old "Better dead than red" ideology.

The problem is they may be saying com/soc is bad, but the stuff they are actually teaching lends it’s self to that way of thinking about society. They teach the children in a way that makes capitalism look heartless and evil. So, by default, they student’s mindset drifts toward socialism/communism.

That is a method that “social change” people have used for decades. If something gets a bad name, change the name, but don’t change what you are doing.

The name is irrelevant. The processes are still the same.

reply to post by links234

Your reply surprised me....and in the interest of carrying on the bit of good feeling, I'll leave that with nothing more said but that it's a pleasant one.


On your first reply, heck, social democracy doesn't sound too far off what we're supposed to have right now. It's not what we find ourselves with of course, and I know your suggestion within those words is a heavy departure from what America has been, but not so far at that stage to take a stand against. Everyone ought to go through something like Occupy. Where else can one live among everything from War vets to Anarchists and Communists in a setting where all can talk and learn? From that experience, I'm not sure we'd have so much trouble chatting, at least to this point of things.


On your second point... Well, yeah, several were rhetorical and the main one, you probably can't answer. Honestly, neither could I...although I met people in Occupy and in College now who could, and so it was worth asking. That question was how, in more than the most general sense, America of 2013 could or would move to a system of Northern Europe style Socialism (The one example in the world that does...absolutely..work well)

On the last point.. Yeah... You and I mix like fire and water it seems. Just enough is polar opposite in view points to make what we may agree on filled with enough tension from the rest that it's not workable. Not really. I'm glad you put it in the words you did... I'd say then, we can probably agree to disagree but with a bit more respect than that is generally said with. You do remind me much of people I knew at the camp and that's not said in any bad way. They're folks I'll be glad I called a friend....and equally glad today, are friends to recall in memory. No hard feelings then?

Originally posted by Mr Tranny


The problem is they may be saying com/soc is bad, but the stuff they are actually teaching lends it’s self to that way of thinking about society. They teach the children in a way that makes capitalism look heartless and evil. So, by default, they student’s mindset drifts toward socialism/communism.

No, I know what I was taught. I was not taught Capitalism was an evil heartless system. I was taught it was the only economic system through which freedom could be achieved. It is not different today. You just want to imagine that because you have an ax to grind.

The reason socialism is coming in vogue again is because of the economic turmoil in this country. When things get bad the extremes on all sides take over. It happened in the Great Depression (with Communism and Fascism) and it's happening again. It will fade away and nothing will come of it. You can all chill with your red baiting now.

Originally posted by Taiyed
reply to post by ModernAcademia

 

They also have a more rational view on homosexuals, immigrants, taxes, healthcare....you name it.

Whenever I see the old men in the GOP talking about the evil gays and the dirty immigrants, I take comfort in the fact knowing that nature has a way of dealing with outdated thinking. The old men will die and along with them their outdated ideas.

Change is inevitable, sometimes you just have to wait for the old guard to die out for it to take place.

edit on 4-11-2012 by Taiyed because: (no reason given)

That is what I mean by “Don’t dismiss the wisdom of your elders.”
Do you think that civilization has not went through this before?
Turn on your brain and think for a second!
There is a reason why they went to the point of classifying it as a sin! Societies have embraced it before, societies have collapsed from it too. The people that wrote those books knew that certain practices had to be outlawed to the highest level. If they were embraced, it would help cause the collapse of the civilization. They knew it would because they were setting in the very runs of that collapsed civilization when they wrote those words. It wasn’t something they contemplated. It was the harsh reality staring them right in the face.

I an not a religious man. But I do not dismiss out of hand, the lessons that are contained in such books. I look at them as more of a history book. An instruction manual for an organized working society. It tells you what you should do, to keep things working. And it tells you want not to do, or things will break….Sometimes badly break!

reply to post by ModernAcademia


What is their definition of socialism?

Originally posted by antonia
No, I know what I was taught. I was not taught Capitalism was an evil heartless system. I was taught it was the only economic system through which freedom could be achieved. It is not different today. You just want to imagine that because you have an ax to grind.

The reason socialism is coming in vogue again is because of the economic turmoil in this country. When things get bad the extremes on all sides take over. It happened in the Great Depression (with Communism and Fascism) and it's happening again. It will fade away and nothing will come of it. You can all chill with your red baiting now.

You are reading stuff into my words that I am not saying.

Where did I say that such teaching did not happen during the great depression?
Where did I imply that it wasn’t in some part the fault of the teaching that helped lead to such rise in conflicting ideas during the great depression, and the great depression it’s self?
Where did I say that this hasn’t happened before?
Where did I say that this movement was going to go anywhere?

My entire point with the last few post was.. We have went through this before. Society learned it’s lessons, then forgot them, and is going to have to make the same mistakes again, and learn the same lessons.

The people that want to push their system will burry the past and try to belittle the lessons from history that tell us not to go down that road.

When we go down that road, we will get our nose bloodied again, and we will learn that lesson again. The people that pushed that system will crawl back to their holes they came from to bug us again when our memories grow old of the last time they stirred.

reply to post by Mr Tranny


You told me what I was taught and I told you that you were wrong that is all. As for "lessons being learned", no it's called progress. People called desegregation "socialism", they said interracial marriage would lead to the collapse of the country-Yet here we are.

The point is all of you are red baiting. It's classic crap that gets pulled out when things go sour and the kids just aren't falling for it anymore.

I agree that the fear of the current economic uncertainty is the main reason the younger crowd is thinking they like socialism. I mean, think about it from their point of view. They took on debt to pay for overpriced college educations and are working at Best Buy or McDonalds. Doesn't seem real fair to them I am sure.

There is something to be said about economic disparity though. The younger people are not blind and they are asking questions..."Is this all there is to life?"

I think born within all human beings (well...most) is a desire for things to be fair and equal. We can see injustice in the world and we long for something to be done about it. Now some people are not born with that trait...and...the tend to grow up to be psychopaths and sociopaths. The element of "empathy" and remorse is not in them. But, as much as we would love to see a fair and equal world, it is just not that way. Is it fair that one person is born into extreme poverty of a third world country and will never get an education at all? Is it equal that another person is born with natural talent to play sports or be a musician or artist?

There is no fair and equal in this world and there never will be. Some people were born to suffer and die and even to the day that the stars burn out, we will never understand why. It is just the way it is.

I believe in free markets and allowing everyone the opportunity to do whatever it is they need to do to be happy and free. If the whole basis of happiness is how much "stuff" you can accumulate, I think you have missed the boat somewhere.

But this is not to say I support crony capitalism. Once someone climbs up the ladder, it's not ok to knock it down so no one else can climb it. That is not "free" markets.

Originally posted by John_Rodger_Cornman
reply to post by ModernAcademia

 

What is their definition of socialism?

Govt. takes care of you
Many of them don't think or care where the money comes from
They don't understand it comes from the people, including low-income families
They don't understand that govt. has no money, it just takes it from the people
They don't understand the dangers associated with this

Originally posted by antonia
reply to post by Mr Tranny

 

You told me what I was taught and I told you that you were wrong that is all. As for "lessons being learned", no it's called progress. People called desegregation "socialism", they said interracial marriage would lead to the collapse of the country-Yet here we are.

The point is all of you are red baiting. It's classic crap that gets pulled out when things go sour and the kids just aren't falling for it anymore.

The irony, it burns!
You said you were not taught those things, then you turn right around and spew many of the falsehoods that modern schools like teaching.

Many of the things you think are true, are not.
The people fighting against interracial marriage were the very same people that was fighting for the new enlightened society that you act so fond of. The liberal party was one of the biggest supporters of racial segregation in the united states.

They like rewriting the history books and blaming their enemies for the things they themselves done.

There has been many young generations that have said “I am not falling for it” Only to find out the hard truth when they grow old.

Originally posted by Mr Tranny

The people fighting against interracial marriage were the very same people that was fighting for the new enlightened society that you act so fond of. The liberal party was one of the biggest supporters of racial segregation in the united states.

There is no liberal party in the U.S.. The Democrats are not Liberal. As for what they were at that point, no they ended up going to the Republican party after LBJ forced the issue through.

They like rewriting the history books and blaming their enemies for the things they themselves done.

Like you just did?

reply to post by antonia


Have fun in your alternate universe.

Socialism appeals to the youth because they desire the paternalism that it promises.

After a decade or two they grow up ideologically and realize they need to stop sucking on the teet.