Call Me A Socialist And I Won't Get Mad

Originally posted by METACOMET

There is no country in the world that practices capitalism. All economies are centrally planned and regulated. It's amazing to me that economic model that doesn't exist in practice is blamed for the ills of the world.

Hey I really agree on that! I never taught of it, but I guess eventually, it just makes capitalism has fiction has communism.

Originally posted by METACOMET
The foundation of world peace is a policy of laissez-faire, not control.

edit on 26-4-2011 by METACOMET because: (no reason given)

Control and helping each other are 2 different things. Weak people are greedy and are driven by fear and they feel the need to control others to stop feeling this constant weakness inside. And those people will always exist and must be "controlled", not be in charge like now! Capitalism just encourages those types of people to take control of everyone else when all normal people want is to live in peace.

Originally posted by simone50m
The US Constitution is/was a failed ----- Libertarian/Social Darwinistic dream?

Surely you are willing to give up all of your Constitutionally protected rights then correct?

Wouldn't mind if the government just threw you in prison indefinitely right? Wouldn't care if they just searched your home and invented crimes you committed right?

Originally posted by User8911


Like I said in another tread, part of the people against socialism are just plain selfish.

Part of the people who support socialism are nothing but parasites. They are unwilling to provide for themselves, so instead they support idiotic policies like income redistribution.

reply to post by ViperChili


I have been communicating here, that Socialism needs to be without ----- fascism. But you kind of so-minded keep lumping someone like me in, with Joseph Stalin's Communism. When it just --ain't-- so. I'll tell you who needs to be thrown into prison without representation. That smirking Janet Napalitano. And her fondness for the genital fondlers.
There are parts of the US Constitution that I like and agree with, such as "pursuit of happiness" and the equality of men. Also the right to gather and speak freely or protest. So I regret sounding like I threw the whole thing out, that was my error.

reply to post by simone50m


The Constitution doesn't authorize socialism though. More specifically, Article 1 Section 8 enumerates the ONLY things Congress can spend public funds on. Those enumerations are few and precise.

Small government is best, and it certainly is not a role of government to subsidize people.

Originally posted by simone50m

Originally posted by tothetenthpower
reply to post by ViperChili

 

The following is my opinion as a member participating in this discussion.

Some of the most stable economies and succesfull countries are actually QUITE socialist my friend. Even the American system is somewhat socialist. What do you think Medicare is?

In any case, there's nothing wrong with socialism so long as you remove the totalitarian complex. Even Ghandi stated he was a socialist at heart.

Ridicule it all you want while capitalism destroys the world.

~Keeper

As an ATS Staff Member, I will not moderate in threads such as this where I have participated as a member.

Yay for you! That is my view, too. I always referred to myself as a Socialist when an appropriate chatforum opportunity came up for it. Even though I'm a US citizen, not European. Perhaps (UH OH HORRORS!) The US Constitution is/was a failed ----- Libertarian/Social Darwinistic dream? And is now ----- obsolete? Socialism can be benevolent and fascist-free. Can, if psychopaths aren't running it.

It only fails, when people destroy it.

reply to post by ViperChili


What I find idiotic is that the richest people don't even share their income, unless you would make 200k a year you would NOT have to give your money. It's the ones that are making millions that should be paying because it's close to impossible to get there without either coming from a rich family or being an ego-maniac. If the share would be more equal, opportunities and resources would be closer to the same for a poor with 150 IQ and rich with 150 IQ.

In the capitalism system, better hope to get born in a wealthy family, if not, you will never attain your true potential. And high potential is everywhere and why don't we see more? Because capitalism works on stepping on other people to reach the top instead of reaching even farther together. The only way this would not make sense is either the person is selfish or has low self-esteem and needs to feel on top or has been brainwashed or is rich already.

What you are saying is true, some would be parasites...but controlled income parasites, not unlimited income parasites like we have now!

reply to post by User8911


With all due respect, your post makes it sound like you have a loser type mentality.

One need not be born into a rich family or have connections in order to succeed. Of course every advantage helps, but there are countless people who came from nothing and are successful beyond their wildest dreams.

People have no obligation to "share their money". Why should one who works hard be forced to subsidize someone who doesn't?

For all of you who want to Live in and have Socialisim. May offer a place for you to visit. Hell LIVE THERE. That is North Korea. Go ahead you can work as hard as you want or as little as you want. You will NEVER Prosper. If you complain you will be serverly beating and possibly put to DEATH. For only the Dictator has and will have anything in a Socilist regime. Now my None thinking Fools who want Socialisim. I LOOK FORWARD TO YOUR RESPONSES......

Originally posted by ViperChili
Why should one who works hard be forced to subsidize someone who doesn't?

From my experience in this life I would say that that is exactly what capitalism is. A bunch of hard working employees subsidizing the bosses lifestyle. Now to be fair some bosses work hard but they hardly ever work harder than their employees. Some don't work at all.

Some may put in long hours but they are more than compensated for their over time. And, wining and dinning potential clients is important but it isn't hard work.

reply to post by LibertarianDE


I have never looked -indepth- at how the North Korean "government" is run, exactly, but, it is oviously a horrible unimaginably nightmarish DICTATORSHIP run by thee most psychopathic and evil humanoid since Pol Pot. I have heard more accounts than I care to, of those starving (I mean it, literally starving) poor poor citizens, who will suffer unspeakable consequences if they speak aloud of their awfull suffering. TRULY Hell on earth. No one has to die to go to the mythical netherworld Hell. I just do not understand WHY the US and NATO, in their (hell)bent will to wage aggressions, never ever touch North Korea. It should have been the focus instead of Iraq, by Bush Herbert Walker. Maybe he got possessed during a Skull And Bones rite, and only knew to conduct villany thereafter.

reply to post by Sestias




God, finally someone on ATS that is awake and aware.

Good post.

Originally posted by jjkenobi

Interesting.. the "socialist" programs you mentioned are all failing horribly. Add the USPS to your list.

Interesting back atcha.

If you have been keeping up with the news, you will know that about 70% of the population are in favor of Social Security and Medicare, and a majority are in favor of Medicaid as well. If they are failing horribly, I guess the American people like that kind of "failure."

Haven't you noticed what a trouncing a lot of Republican lawmakers are getting as they head back to their Home districts during the Congressional recess?

I guess Glenn Beck and Rush Limbaugh haven't mentioned it, but Republican Congressmen are being challenged everywhere they speak about their proposed "salvation" of Medicare. These meetings with constituents top the Town Hall meetings last summer in both size and fervor. Even Michele Bachman and many in the Tea Party are trying to distance themselves from the Ryan budget. You should see clips from these meetings, including Congressman Ryan himself scrambling for answers to the pointed questions he was getting from the folks back home. He tried all kinds of euphemisms to sugar coat the naked aggression against working people and the whole middle class but their audiences aren't buying it.

I must say, though, that in these meetings the protesters are far more civil, calm and rational than the audiences were during the town hall meetings last year. They don't show their opposition by screaming over those who are trying to speak and attempting to drown out what their representatives are trying to say. Their audiences are clearly angry, but most behave like adults and show some respect for their duly elected lawmakers.

reply to post by Sestias


Good for you! I want to repost part of a conversation that I had with EarthCitizen the other day on the tea party thread. What I think this comes down to is a group of people who are either incredibly ignorant and uneducated about history and civics, including basic terms and definitions of words, or people are purposefully misrepresenting things in order to advance an agenda. I have a hard time believing people can be so under-educated about such basic government concepts...but then again, I suppose it's entirely possible that people really have been that brainwashed about these things (a la McCarthyism in the 60's)
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So generally when these people talk about "Socialism" they take a few extreme examples, and assume that is the "norm", that socialism = authoritarian communism/authoritarian nationalism, when actually these things are not equatable at all. The extreme examples that they often refer to (i.e. nazi germany, stalinist russia) is intended to completely obscure the fact, that western Europe has had a democratic-socialistic government for decades and they are doing quite well, much better than the U.S. in most arenas of the world (i.e. education, health, happiness of citizens, standard of living, less debt, etc., although granted not perfect)

It's also important to notice where these people get their "information" regarding "socialism". They are all usually highly biased inaccurate sources (you can usually tell just from the "inflammatory" and "hyperbolic" language that they use to frame the debate). For example, I often wonder if the definition of "Socialism" on wikipedia is one of the reasons that conservatives went off and started "conservapedia". I mean, this is not really controversial stuff. We're talking definitions of words that the majority of people have a common understanding about (for example people in Europe would most likely laugh in the face of what some Americans think socialism to be) Now just for the record, here's the wiki entry:

As an economic system, socialism is the direct allocation of capital goods (means of production) to meet economic demands so that production is oriented toward use and accounting is based on some physical magnitude, such as physical quantities or a direct measure of labour time.[6][7] Goods and services for consumption are distributed through markets, and distribution of income is based on the principle of individual merit/individual contribution.[8]

Hmm....lets see: "allocation of goods(supply) based on demand", "goods and services distributed through markets", "income based on individual merit and individual contribution" You see what I mean? I mean if that isn't the exact definition of "Tyranny" than I don't know what is!

Now lets look at the "conservapedia" definition:

Socialism is a liberal economic system with state ownership or control of the all the major means of production and distribution of goods and services.[4] Socialism is the economic system imposed by Communism, but another one of the most well known political parties of the 20th century which was socialistic was the National Socialist German Workers Party (NAZI) which was headed by the evolutionary racist Adolf Hitler.

There is also a large photo of Adolf Hitler that accompanies this article, with his hand raised and crazed look on his face.

Now isn't it strange that the wikipedia entry doesn't even mention "Hitler" or "nazis" in their writeup on Socialism? Just goes to show you the disconnect between some people and REALITY. The fact that Nazi-ism had very little to do with either true Communism or Socialism means nothing to these people because it doesn't support their beliefs or world views (so they just ignore it, or twist the truth/lie and assign their own definitions to words). Nazism was authoritarian fascism, which is completely different from socialism which, according to the the wiki article states that it strives for the "abolition of hierarchical structures in favor of free association.".

Now lets see what the wiki entry for "Nazi-ism" is.

Nazism was the ideology and practice of the Nazi Party and of Nazi Germany. It was a unique variety of fascism that involved biological racism and antisemitism.[10] Nazism presented itself as politically syncretic, incorporating policies, tactics and philosophies from right- and left-wing ideologies; in practice, Nazism was a far right form of politics. The Nazis believed in the supremacy of an Aryan master race and claimed that Germans represent the most pure Aryan nation.[12] They argued that Germany's survival as a modern great nation required it to create a New Order — an empire in Europe that would give the German nation the necessary land mass, resources, and expansion of population needed to be able to economically and militarily compete with other powers.

Hmmm....Interesting, Nazi-ism is a form of "far right" politics. Again, what I said, authoritarian and fascist in nature.

Now another thing I want to mention, is that someone the other day, I forget who, posted a link to an article on Rense's site called "14 defining characteristics of Fascism" and it's interesting to note the similarity between this list, and the policies that some of the extremists (including the neo-cons/neo-libs, the corporatists, globalists, and others.) advocate, including things like the abolition of unions, nationalism and the security state, wars of aggression, oppression of gay people, and so on. Here's just a few quotes so you get the idea:

- Powerful and Continuing Nationalism: Fascist regimes tend to make constant use of patriotic mottos, slogans, symbols, songs, and other paraphernalia.
- Disdain for the Recognition of Human Rights: Because of fear of enemies and the need for security, the people in fascist regimes are persuaded that human rights can be ignored in certain cases because of "need."
- Identification of Enemies/Scapegoats as a Unifying Cause: The people are rallied into a unifying patriotic frenzy over the need to eliminate a perceived common threat or foe: racial , ethnic or religious minorities; liberals; communists; socialists, terrorists, etc.
- Rampant Sexism: The governments of fascist nations tend to be almost exclusively male-dominated. Under fascist regimes, traditional gender roles are made more rigid. Divorce, abortion and homosexuality are suppressed and the state is represented as the ultimate guardian of the family institution.
- Obsession with National Security
- Religion and Government are Intertwined
- Corporate Power is Protected
- Labor Power is Suppressed: Because the organizing power of labor is the only real threat to a fascist government, labor unions are either eliminated entirely, or are severely suppressed.
- Disdain for Intellectuals and the Arts: Fascist nations tend to promote and tolerate open hostility to higher education, and academia

There's more, but I just wanted to include those bullets to sort of contrast with some of the things going on in this country right now, and how some people are advocating for the banning of unions, for the outlawing of gay marriage/suppression of gay rights, expansion of national security state, religion in government & schools, the absolute protection of corporate power, the privatization of anything "public" (schools, health care, utilities), and so on. Again, I'm not saying that these people are fascists (I actually think they are just confused/misinformed/brainwashed)...I'm just pointing this out as a comparison to how things like unions & labor rights, gay rights, minority rights, human rights, access to knowledge via public education etc. get labeled as all these horrible "evil / socialist / communist / fascist" things when in fact, the reality is quite different. I just wonder if these people who use these terms such as "socialist" in such a disparaging way actually have an understanding of what the concepts actually mean? Do they realize the history? Or are they purposely twisting the truth in order to scare people and serve a particular agenda. Or, are they just believing what they have been told on T.V./radio? Anyone care to take a stab at this?
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Well now that I posted that, I'll patiently wait to get flamed and of course accused of being an evil-nazi-commie-socialist-anti-christ.

When US constitution does not protect all human rights (such as RIGHT to healthcare, education, basic necessities) then its incomplete. Not bad, simply incomplete.

Think for yourself, dont substitute holy scriptures (religious or nonreligious) inplace of your brain.

reply to post by Maslo


Just because you deem some things a right doesn't automatically make them so.

reply to post by ViperChili


So what determines what is a right and what is not? What majority of people think rights are NOW, or what is written in two hundred years old document that was composed in exactly the opposite circumstances (very low population, huge amount of resources in a virgin world, no need for higher qualification to succeed, concept of human and child rights in its infancy) than now (almost overpopulation, resources diminishing, no hope to succeed without huge initial investments, Declaration of basic human rights, Declaration of the rights of the child)?

The U.S is already pretty socialist. we have a lot less economic freedom then many other so called "socialist" countries, if it wasn't for our private sector we would spend a lot more on social programs. I say we should just hurry up and go full socialist, it's going to happen, it doesn't really matter if we want it or not.

Well considering that liberal Democrats have never been champions of smaller government, nor have they ever been for less spending....its easy for anyone to conclude that, by their very nature, the Unconstitutional social welfare programs, and their entitlement programs that they continually lobby for....which not only increases the burden on the tax payer, but shift the power to the government, which in turn allows them to dictate the means of manufacturing and distribution to the people. That by definition is socialism. Having the " power " to dictate who gets what and where, is a form of socialism, and it can be easily cross referenced to tyranny.

Originally posted by Whereweheaded
which not only increases the burden on the tax payer, but shift the power to the government, which in turn allows them to dictate the means of manufacturing and distribution to the people.That by definition is socialism.

That is not the definition of socialism because in socialism the government does not dictate the means of production because the means of production are owned by the people. What you are describing is something else.