Oh wow:
http://i458.photobucket.com/albums/q.../socialism.png
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I finished reading that /b/ post on the laptop that I purchased with money I earned through my own labor, then proceeded to take a sip of coffee from a mug I made myself out of ceramics. Then I went to the kitchen in the house that I hold the deed to and made myself a sandwich using ingredients I purchased from a privately owned store and bread that I baked myself.
I guess he missed the memo that our infrastructure "highways, bridges" are one of the most unsafe out of all first world countries, also how bad our education system is..the list goes on
Cause surely all the poor kids would do much better if they couldn't afford to attend school at all.Quote:
Originally Posted by tkdyo
ah, no. The point is that just because its state funded doesnt mean its good. Likewise if you are going pure free market you then have to look around for what the best is, but at least there are options.
I just hate anything that seems to glorify one side and demonize the other, because it seems to me that its pretty obvious we need a mix for the best result.
and how the electrical grid is falling apart, and how everyone thinks the FCC is a joke, and how the FDA approves dangerous drugs.Quote:
Originally Posted by tkdyo
oh yea, those work great, and the postal service is going broke..
And the roads and bridges are crumbling.
we're doing just fine, LOL
Government run anything is fail for the most part.
Government needs to be shown where its place is, constrained and locked away like a little bitch, its OUR LITTLE BITCH which we should boss around and tell what to do.
And I tell it to protect our unalienable rights, to obey the oath they take, if they do not obey they are shamefully booted out of office and have their bodyguards taken off duty, they deserve no protection, traitors deserve to be left out on their own.
Then, they should make sure we are a republic, a constitutional republic, not a stupid Greek democracy, rule of the majority, oppression of the minority.
Then we would have competently built and maintained roads and bridges built by companies, not departments of failure.
the DOT's sad attempt to maintain the road system is obvious, they patch holes with cheap asphalt quick and easy, and they just pray it holds...what a plan!
Not to mention our fragile electrical grid system which can totally fail at any given moment, remember the blackout of 2003? that was caused by 1 power line knocked out in the middle of the us, which shut power off all the way to new york city and far beyond.
DOE is doing a shit job, DOEducation is also doing a shit job, the CDC is a fucking lying joke, the UN and FDA and FCC are irrelevant and retarded.
How about the department of agricultures failure to stop salmonella popping up everywhere in vegetables and other strange sources?
Why is our produce so harmfully covered in unsafe artificial pesticides?...because of them..
Organically grown non doa approved food is WAY better, with natural pesticides like sulfur and garlic, or some farms use specific insects or small animals to feed off the insects which like the crops.
Better yet, if we weren't on the governments antiquated system, we would have had a huge farming industry of hydroponically grown vegetables and fruits, grown with ZERO pesticides organically, indoors in a greenhouse, no soil no fertilizer, cheaper cost...cost effective and way healthier....or the governments subsidized outdoor failure alternative.
subsidization doesn't work, let the free market decide the best product, not some douche in a suit who doesn't understand the issues he attempts to fix with useless legislature and subsidized money and regulations and rules..
I encourage all to say no to socialism. Let us end road socialism, military socialism, legal socialism and all other forums of disgusting coercive collectivist thought. Privatize that which moves and that which doesn't.
Fire Department is socialized. Damn them to Hell.
^ yeah, cause its their fault their underfunded >.>
It is a cruel tragedy. Why should you be forced against your will to pay for services that you have the ability to never use in a given year?Quote:
Originally Posted by Invader
Are fire departments necessary for a society? Of course.
The real question is who can provide a better services,
the government or the private market.
That is a poster for the kind of totalitarian government necessary to maintain socialism. I don't eat for anybody, and I would say business owners get a lot of the credit for feeding people. Also, I am not fooled by religious leaders and have never been shot at. Plus, we elect our leaders, so they don't "rule" us. They just govern our system after we decide they can.
you need to replace the word capitalism with socialism/communism/fascism
Nazi's were socialists ya know, national socialist party of germany WAS the nazi party.
So pretty much if you like socialism, you like a certain view hitler/mussolini had.
They also were fascists in the sense that they were working side by side with big corporations, fascism is pretty much a merger between big business and big government, (mussolini was quoted saying that fascism is really corporatism) and the part of socialism is hitler taking all the wealth and using it for himself, and the military spending enormous budget.
Its quite funny how hitler despised the communists, when socialism which he engaged in is in fact a wing of communism.
There was also the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics, which was that poster minus the religious figures.
That's what I wanted to convey with that poster.
This is what happens when there is no concept of property. Without capitalism, there can be no concept of property. Hence, socialism blows.Quote:
Originally Posted by Universal Mind
That is why socialists are not allowed in my house. They don't believe in individual ownership, so I see no reason why they wouldn't steal stuff from me. The fact that somebody owns something means nothing to them.Quote:
Originally Posted by mini0991
Wow, you people don't have perspective at all. You treat the term "socialism" as if it was a synonym of communism, when there are infact many different politics now, which falls under the term socialism.
I assure you, it's quite possible to be a socialist and yet have a deep respect for ownership.Quote:
Originally Posted by Universal Mind
Please explain that. How do people who are committed to taking away the property of others (or "making it everybody else's property") respect the property of others? I have never heard a socialist say anything like, "Well, it is THEIR property, and we need to consider that." The matter means absolutely nothing to them.Quote:
Originally Posted by khh
Do you accept the existence of a 'commons?' That some things are in fact everyone's property, or too vital to common survival to be allotted as personal property?Quote:
Originally Posted by Universal Mind
But certainly not *all* things are everyone's. I worked hard in life to earn what little I have. Why should someone who sits around and smokes crack all day or mooches off everything without working for anything get what I earned? Nothing would get done in society and nothing would be fair. We'd turn our first-class society into a third world dump.Quote:
Originally Posted by Taosaur
The ocean, space, oxygen... Yeah, but (as mini said) that does not mean everything is. Not even most things are. Socialists don't have the mere attitude that some things are so vital they have to be considered everybody's. They have the attitude that all property is a free for all. They don't say, "I know that property belongs to those people who worked so hard for it, but dammit, we have to take it to help people with very little. This really sucks." Their attitude is, "Ha ha, screw the rich. They suck. Let's sock it to 'em! Screw them and their wealth!" Socialists don't respect other people's property on any level.Quote:
Originally Posted by Taosaur
the problem UM with socialism is not taking money just from the rich, usually the money ends up being taken from middle class folks also, so they can give it to people like octomom who had 8 kids who wants to mooch off societies retarted entitlement programs which reward lazyness and punish hard work.
Thats the problem today, socialism encourages people to be lazy and collect Unemployment checks and welfare and food stamps and all of these incentives to never get a job.
They are giving encouragement to jobless people, to not get a job...by handing out all this crap to them, and they punish hard work by taxing the hard worker and giving it to a crackhead or an octomom freak.
Talk about a loaded statement.Quote:
Originally Posted by guerilla
Some of the misconceptions in this thread are astounding. Hitler was not a socialist/communist; Nazism has been analyzed by political theorists extensively and is thought to be a comepletely different politcal system to any of those that we know. It was not socialist, it was not facist and it was not capitalist; it borrowed certain aspects from each economic/politcal system and it formed a highly effective if ruthless state.
Second of all, as previously pointed out socialists are not for the abolition of private property, many on the far left are, however, that simply does not involve socialists. Socialists primarily believe in a rigourous re distribution of wealth. Surely it is not acceptable for 5% of the population to own over 95% of the wealth. Why have billionaires and people starving, when we can have niether?
Universal your argument is a blatant strawman. Socialists have a great deal of respect for ownership; ownership of a house, ownership of a car, just not ownership of multi national corporations that seemingly stitch up our globe between them, they view this wealth as having been accumulated by theft in the form of wage slavery and the theft of natural resources that belong to the people of the country in which they were found. When a huge oil deposit is found in Dubai, why should a huge corporation benefit whilst the rest of the people watch the oil exported and benefit nothing? Surely if this natural resource was nationalised the wealth created could be and has been in the past, more evenly distributed.
Socialism, as stated previously is a broad politcal stance that encompasses a number of different ideas. view as socialist.
Many would refer to the model in Europe, especially the Scandinavian countries as socialist. The healthcare system in this country has saved my life twice, a system that most would refer to as socialist.
Fascism is a theory of national socialism. It can be described as socialism of the right. Here is an article by George Reisman which is rather good in explaining this point:Quote:
Originally Posted by imran_p
Why Nazism was Socialism and Why Socialism is Totalitarian
Also, how can you say Nazism isn't fascism?
http://encarta.msn.com/encyclopedia_...Socialism.html
Let us theorize that what you are saying is correct, I'm not conceding that it is but I'm trying to show a point under your system. Let us say there is a complete equality revolution that transpires tomorrow. If you are not for the abolition of private property, what is stopping those from gaining more wealth then others and again pushing the system which you deem unacceptable? And also if you have a respect for private property, an actual respect, not just lipservice, then by what right do you take private property? I would also like to hear which Socialists announce that the abolition of private property is not their goal. Perhaps Fascists who want to control the private property of others through the state, but I don't think you are a fascist. Perhaps I am misjudging you though, we really haven't gotten into a drawn out discussion.Quote:
Originally Posted by imran_p
First off, it is not just billionaires that socialists want to go after. It is everybody with above average wealth. Your question about why billionaires should be allowed to keep their money has two answers. It is THEIR money, and their right to be billionaires is what influenced them to work their asses off to create so many zillions of jobs and such an extreme amount of economic stimulation, which greatly benefits the system as a whole. If you put limits on how rich people can be, they lose interest in the game and the system itself suffers.Quote:
Originally Posted by imran_p
We do not have wage slavery in the U.S. or Europe. People are perfectly free to switch jobs and to climb ladders. A lot of people are pissed at others for being successful while not trying to do better for themselves. They don't want to put out effort, so they try to feel better about themselves by trying to bring down those who have gotten somewhere. It is sick and pathetic, and it is the chief root of socialist ideology. In my country and yours, people can get somewhere if they try. If they don't try, they have no business bringing down those who did.
Resources should first go to the people who OWN the land and then to whoever can buy them from those owners. They do not belong to anybody who doesn't earn them. Rewarding lack of effort while punishing effort is extremely unfair and also terrible for the system.
What would be the result of distribution of grades? I'm not saying grades are as important as money. I am just illustrating the ineffectiveness of reward distribution. What would the result be?
Name some people who are starving in the U.S. or Britain. As I have said many times, our "poor" have cell phones an X Boxes, and our homeless people are often fat. I have yet to see an underweight homeless American. I also have yet to successfully encourage a homeless American to go to the unemployment office.
I gotta say...punishing effort is NOT fair. Its one thing if its a rich spoiled brat born in to money. But, at the same time, it is still that child's parent's money and they have a right to choose what they do with it. It may not be moral, whatever they do, but it is still their right to not have to give it away.
You're thinking of an extreme form of socialism, one in which everything is shared - houses, cars, computers, spouses, kids, everything. That's certainly not the only form of socialism around.Quote:
Originally Posted by Universal Mind
You can be a socialist, and still believe in owning - not sharing - these things. The basic idea of socialism is that, err, welfare should be shared, but it doesn't mean you have to abolish all differences. It can be so simple as to care for the weak and ill, and make every one have the same chance - regardless of their parents pay-check. It means you put up a safety net in society, so that even if you make a few bad choices you're not suddenly doomed and have an option to recover.
It doesn't have to mean that everyone should have the exact same pay-check, regardless of effort and skill - it means that (ideally) no-one has to live in inhumane conditions.
You assume that being a socialist automatically means you're revolutionary. This is wrong. Therefore your argument have no weight.Quote:
Originally Posted by Laughing Man
It's not like the idea is to is to take every penny. If you're a brilliant businessman, you'll still have a lot of money under a socialist rule, just not quite as much under a capitalism rule. And if you've got a few billions just lying around, it's not like you can't afford to pay a little more tax than everyone else. So people still strive for riches. Though I've always wondered why being a good businessman is really the only thing that can land you such wealth.Quote:
Originally Posted by Universal Mind
It's not all based on effort either. The richest men isn't necessarily those who put the most effort into it, a good deal of luck is involved too. And of course skill plays a role.Quote:
Originally Posted by Universal Mind
There are resources that can't really be owned by anyone. Take a waterfall, for instance. They can be used to produce power. And while you may own the land, do you own the power generated? You don't own the water. And what if someone further up the river changes the river-course, so that it no longer runs through your property, is that fair?Quote:
Originally Posted by Universal Mind
And as for something not belonging to someone who haven't earned it, isn't much of the land owned really a coincidence? When your forefather bought that land, they didn't know the river could be used for power. They just happened to choose that spot, rather than the one next to it. Have they really "earned" it, then?
You constantly bring this up, and yet it is not true.Quote:
Originally Posted by Universal Mind
The system is not meant to reward those who're just lazy, it's meant to help the unfortunate. For instance here, if you've had a job for a certain period, and you're then unlucky enough to get fired and you're unable to find another job, you'll get money while you're looking. But if you stop looking, then the extra cash stops.
Of course I can't name anyone. Though I could have said "Oh, well, I know this John Doe who're really trying, and ..." but if I did, what would it mean? Nothing. Now, it is a fact that there are poor people in the US, even if you haven't met any.Quote:
Originally Posted by Universal Mind
Well in some respects you have to be a revolutionary if you are trying to overthrow the status quo. A radical, a revolutionary, there are many titles. Also being a 'radical' does not infer one is violent. I am a radical libertarian yet I am against coercion. I think that my point still stands though. If we were to have equality tomorrow, then logically speaking what is stopping the equals from turning into the haves and have nots? I don't think there is a way you can make amends without some transgression against property rights and if you are going to transgress against private property in order to make sure people get food, shelter, clothing, then there is little difference between that and luxury items when it comes to the principle of it. Perhaps a good analogy may clear this point. Say I go to the opposite sex and ask 'Hey will you sleep with me for a million dollars?' and perhaps I will get the answer 'hmmm...well I guess' I mean its a million dollars. Now after getting this answer what if I asked another question: 'Well will you sleep with me for 5 dollars?" the person would of course be enraged and say "What kind of person do you think I am?" Well we already know what kind of person you are, its just a matter of how high a value you treat yourself. And to compare that to socialism, it has already been established that you are willing to deny private property if there are others 'suffering' so it is not a question of whether or not you respect private property, its really a question of toleration.Quote:
Originally Posted by khh
A revolutionary believes a revolution is the way, but socialism could be achieved through democracy as well.Quote:
Originally Posted by Laughing Man
Ah, I'm sorry. I thought your point was that if there was a revolution, it would go badly with the conditions returning to how they were before, and therefore it is wrong to believe in socialism. Guess I misunderstood you there.Quote:
Originally Posted by Laughing Man
Now to answer your point, though (let's hope I get it right this time), the aim of socialism isn't (or isn't necessarily) total equality. If everyone were total equals, I agree that you'd have to either transgress against private property or use other drastic means, but you don't need everyone to be totally equal. If there were no advantages to taking a higher education, then fewer would. If making a discovery or invention meant that everyone would immediately have access to it, then the motivation for progress would be less. And that simply isn't a good system.
However, having mega differences in society isn't in people's interest either. that some should have a lot (and I mean a LOT, not just more than others), while others have nothing. So socialism means that those who would have had a lot have a bit less, but still a lot, while those who had nothing now have something, if not all that much.
What do you mean by "it has already been established that you are willing to deny private property if there are others 'suffering'"? If you consider your income to be your "private property", then yes, I believe that a little more of your income should be taxed, and that it should be used for everyones good such as free hospital care and more affordable dental and to take care of disabled people who're unable to make proper a living. That kind of stuff.Quote:
Originally Posted by Laughing Man
But I'd not suggest to pawn your personal belongings, and if you're saved up money then that's your money, no questions about it.
Well this is confusing, you start off saying you don't think everyone is going to be equal..yet you say differences in society are bad. So you seem to imply that equality can't be achieved..but we should try anyways?Quote:
Originally Posted by khh
Again another confusing statement, you say that people should be taxed a little more but then say if you save your money...then its your money. Well if it is my money then by what right is there taxation especially when it is against my will?Quote:
Originally Posted by khh
No, I didn't say we should try for equality, for total and absolute equality, I said we should avoid too big differences. I'm not saying differences are bad, I'm saying that those who have very little or nothing should be helped, and I'm saying that everyone should have access to basic welfare, such as hospital care. Now, if there was a way of doing that without making anybody pay taxes, then great! Unfortunately, there isn't, so paying taxes on your income is required for this to be possible.Quote:
Originally Posted by Laughing Man
So you see, it isn't really about the differences. If everyone did all right with money, then some people could be as filthy rich as they wanted and I wouldn't care. See the difference?
I'm primarily talking about taxes on income, and perhaps when buying something. Not quite sure how I feel about property taxes. But I do know I consider that a lesser evil than the "every man for himself" system in the US.Quote:
Originally Posted by Laughing Man
Then you are not a true socialist. You just believe in having a little bit of socialism, just like Republicans and Democrats in the U.S.Quote:
Originally Posted by khh
I agree. Effort is still a major factor in the big picture.Quote:
Originally Posted by khh
I think governments own rivers. It wouldn't make sense for a private citizen to own just part of a river.Quote:
Originally Posted by khh
Like I said, you are not a true socialist. You sound more like a regular Democrat or Republican (in American terms).Quote:
Originally Posted by khh
I didn't ask you to name people who are merely poor. I asked you to name people who are starving. You live in Norway, and I don't know much about your country other than its beauty and music, but in the U.S. we do not have a starvation problem. We have rich "poor" people and fat homeless people.Quote:
Originally Posted by khh
I'm not too sure about that. As you might know the Scandinavian countries are considered to be pretty socialistic, and my opinions are defiantly on the left side of the spectrum. I guess you almost could put me down as a social democrat, but really I'm a bit left of that.Quote:
Originally Posted by Universal Mind
However it does seem like you and many other have a very strict definition of socialism, seemingly as a synonym of communism, while I have a more liberal view of the word.
No, you might not have a starvation problem, I don't really know, but you do have a health care problem. And the US is mightily privatized.Quote:
Originally Posted by Universal Mind
Our healthcare problem is hyped up by the media. You can get health insurance for about $150 a month here. The people who don't have it generally choose not to have it. Healthcare and insurance would cost a lot less if our crazy lawsuit problem were not so out of hand. Caps on punitive damages would clean that right up.Quote:
Originally Posted by khh
He got one thing wrong. The federal reserve is a private bank.
It's as private as mcdonalds :)Quote:
Originally Posted by Xaqaria
lets say they called mcdonalds:
The federal mcdonalds...people would immediately assume its a branch or part of government, ahh how its so easy to fool the sheeple.
That was created through a piece of government legislation. The Fed is a strange hybrid.Quote:
Originally Posted by Xaqaria
http://imgs.xkcd.com/comics/sheeple.pngQuote:
Originally Posted by guerilla
okay i admit mcdonalds was a terrible name choice, how about the Federal Express.
That could fool many into believing its a federal program for delivery.
More like if the Federal Express was created by the government, was given a monopoly on the services it provides and is able to create its own profits out of thin out in which people are legally obligated to accept.Quote:
Originally Posted by guerilla