Is America becoming Socialist ?

[ginnyfizz]

Can someone actually explain where I said that Obama is actually responsible for the fact that Britain, Greece, Spain, Portugal etc are in such a state? I said that those of us who dislike Obama's policies do so because

 

" We see in him the Socialist tendencies and policies that have been implemented over the other side of the pond and have brought Britain and other countries (Greece, Spain, Portugal...) to the brink of the financial abyss. And we do not wish to see the USA go down the chute with us, believe it or not."

 

In other words, we see him implementing similar types of policies over in the USA, not that he is responsible for the policies our own Socialists have imposed on us! Please do not misconstrue what I have said.

 

Now to the inevitable Brit-bashing which I find quite breathtaking, because at no point have I ever suggested that Britain is an example of what the ideal should be, quite the reverse. And nor have I insulted the American people or nation, I have merely said that I feel sad and uneasy at the direction that the current President is taking them in. And that I do not wish to see them end up in the same pickle that we have. I therefore fail to see why Britain's Imperialist past has suddenly been dragged into the equation.

 

@species5478, your memory most certainly does NOT serve you correctly concerning the abolition of slavery. Britain was one of the first countries to formally suppress slavery and the slave trade, in 1807. It was abolished for the entire Empire as it stood at the time. By 1845 we had the largest anti-slaving naval squadron in the world, which tells you rather a lot about what other nations were doing about slavery, ie carrying on with it long after we abolished it.

 

@Balagor, actually your point about Greece only goes to confirm what I have been saying all along. The inflation of the number of public sector "jobs for the boys" (and girls) by the Socialist government in order to keep their client voters and union paymasters sweet, is one of the main factors that got Britain into the pit that it is in now.

 

As to the banking disaster, as I have asserted before, no-one denies that it happened, and it is perfectly true that the nation of Iceland has indeed been bankrupted by it. However, the banking crisis is not what has caused the economic crisis here in Britain. That, as I have said, has been due to the sort of reckless Socialist spending that I wish to see the USA spared from. And I use the word Socialist not to offend, I merely state that because of the similarities between some of Obama's social policies and the Socialist policies that I have seen over here, that he might well have a Socialist tendency.

[Balagor]

@Aurielius and others who thinks that socialism is dictatorship and goverment with their hands in your pockets.

Please forget Marx, forget Kim IL Young, forget all the bad guys. They are history. That´s why I even started by calling it "social system". "Socialism" obvisiouly has a bad sound in some ears.

In EU we never went that far as to controll eachother, or that the pour should "steal from the rich" (then he becomes rich and gets it stolen back, lol). We simply think as the state as a company, which we by certain services from. Instead of having bills coming in all the time, we pay regulary, it is called tax. We are happy about it. Some of us even wants to pay higher taxes, to get more services. I fully respect that you do not want it inside your door, but I think you are also afraid of the unknown here, since you have never tryed it, and you have seen/heard many scary storys about our social system.

[ginnyfizz]

Bows to Balagor, with all due respect.

 

I believe Aurelius has relatives who live or have lived in Britain, so like myself, he would be in a position to know just what the EU brand of Socialism can do. You may not wish to believe this, Balagor, but under more than a dozen years of a Labour government Britain became a virtual police state, with a level of surveillance that would not disgrace the former Eastern Bloc and a massively bloated public sector. The new Coalition are having to tackle not only the economic fallout but are also bringing forth legislation to repeal some of the assaults on civil liberties that the previous lot made. In practice, despite all the money that got splashed around, people in Britain still often have to pay for the medical treatment they need, if they happen to be in the wrong postcode area. So we get the worst of both worlds, and therefore Americans SHOULD be worried.

 

I have just been reading my newspaper and an interesting piece by a financial analyst. He pointed out that whereas the bankers did cause a crisis with their sub-prime lending, it is also true to say that governments were also to blame for pressurizing those banks to lend to the less well off, in the spirit of fairness...or maybe to create a feelgood factor to keep the said governments in power...

[Aurielius]

@Aurielius and others who thinks that socialism is dictatorship and goverment with their hands in your pockets.

Please forget Marx, forget Kim IL Young, forget all the bad guys. They are history. That´s why I even started by calling it "social system". "Socialism" obvisiouly has a bad sound in some ears.

In EU we never went that far as to controll eachother, or that the pour should "steal from the rich" (then he becomes rich and gets it stolen back, lol). We simply think as the state as a company, which we by certain services from. Instead of having bills coming in all the time, we pay regulary, it is called tax. We are happy about it. Some of us even wants to pay higher taxes, to get more services. I fully respect that you do not want it inside your door, but I think you are also afraid of the unknown here, since you have never tryed it, and you have seen/heard many scary storys about our social system.

@Balagor...med hensyn min ven,

First off I have lived and was educated in England, my mother and sister are Brits and still live in London, so my perception of European socialism is first hand not referential. The examples of working Socialism or as you would prefer to state the European Social System is present in countries that are not much larger than individual states of the US, so a representative corollary would have to be on a continental scale such as the former USSR or China. That you want a higher tax structure for increased benefits is a choice I freely grant you in what is after all your own back yard.

I do not believe that I am afraid of the unknown but rather the known. The smaller countries of Europe do not have the world wide obligations that we in the US must support, therefor without the necessity of maintaining a first class military infrastructure, the luxury of dabbling in economic systems is available to you while having the security of western Europe paid for by the more dominant members of NATO. The failure of both Greece and Iceland is simply the tip of the European economic iceberg, both of which have had the Social System that you advocate right up to the point of economic implosion.

[monkybuttface]

Well, I think the whole concept of socialism would never work, I mean, capitalism has worked very well for the last couple hundred years hasn't it? So every few years we stumble, but we end up getting back up stronger than before, with new lessons learned, the problem is simply at the core of human nature, its the same problem faced by socialism, communism, dictatorships, monarchy, anarchy, even theocracy. As humans we want MORE, and as humans we can be lazy, and as humans we can sometimes be selfish enough to think that everyone has to hand us everything. Every single political or economic system ever designed could easily work, just not with creatures of the same mentality that we humans have.

The day that men and women cease to fight, lie, and steal is the day they stop being men and women, and start being something else entirely. We are going to have to put up with this crap, and capitalism seems to be the only system where this can be turned into an advantage. In all the other systems we get lazy people who live like the hard workers, we get an elite few who control absolutely everything without having to really work for it, or we get some other variety of foolishness that I cant think of right now.

Don't get me wrong, we have plenty of foolishness over here as well, but it doesn't have the same opportunities to thrive.

[species5478]

You bring up interesting points. And have an equally interesting name! monkybuttface? That's priceliess! lol I love it! Ok but seriously…

 

You say American Capitalism has worked well for hundreds of years? Perhaps. But doesn't that depend on perspective? If you're a Caucasian male, then absolutely. But females have only recently established equal rights. African Americans would frown on your statement. Because instances like Martin Luther King's assassination, just ended about thirty, or forty years ago. Before that, there was slavery. And the Native Americans went from a population of five million, to their current numbers of around five hundred thousand after their genocide at the hands of pilgrims. Not to mention, their land was taken away from them. All was done in the name of Capitalism. Even today, America still has "slaves", although not in the traditional, chain and whip sense. Mexicans pick vegetables and do farm, construction, and other forms of labor for next to nothing, because of their "illegal" status. Employees in China work suicidal hours in factories making electronic gadgets for Americans for about three hundred dollars a month. Indonesians have children in sweatshops making clothes for dollars a month. All in the name of Capitalism. So yeah, Capitalism works well when you're on the receiving end. For everybody else…not so much. So how long can we exploit others? What's also sad, is that in the enclosed video, some of our most "hip" toys, like I-Phones, are gobbled up by the masses here. But Apple isn't hiring American workers to make the gadgets. Just buy them. And we wonder why there are no jobs here.

 

 

 

 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZO9-hlJ5FsQ

[Sinophile]

Just got done reading 4 pages of this topic. I believe the following image sums up nicely what I have to say.

 

http://i.imgur.com/uRMf0.jpg

 

Anyway, I do not believe that America is becoming socialist for the following reasons:

 

1.) All members of Congress are beneficiaries of Capitalism, including Obama. They all own large amounts of private property, and would have the most to lose in a socialist revolution.

2.) No one cared about socialism until Obama came into office.

3.) I had some more reasons, but I am too lazy to think them up at the moment.

 

I find the whole socialism vs. capitalism debate somewhat interesting, and at times hypocritical. Those who criticize the health bill and other "socialist" programs have no qualms about the government building a giant wall along our southern border, and staffing it with National Guards, whom I am sure do not work for free, in order to keep out their supposed competitors from entering their job market.

 

My bottom line is, Socialism is simply an overused buzzword, much like terrorist, communist, global warming, and environmentally friendly.

 

 

You bring up interesting points. And have an equally interesting name! monkybuttface? That's priceliess! lol I love it!

It is also worth pointing out that his profiles says he was born in 1994.

[Aurielius]

@Species

With all due respect, I disagree with the premise of your recent argument, point by point as follows. (your arguments in color)

You say American Capitalism has worked well for hundreds of years? Perhaps. But doesn't that depend on perspective? If you're a Caucasian male, then absolutely. But females have only recently established equal rights.

 

Equal rights is a political inequality not an economic system, there are numerous examples of successful women in business today. Women are just as capable of using the capitalistic system as men.

 

African Americans would frown on your statement. Because instances like Martin Luther King's assassination, just ended about thirty, or forty years ago. Before that, there was slavery. And the Native Americans went from a population of five million, to their current numbers of around five hundred thousand after their genocide at the hands of pilgrims. Not to mention, their land was taken away from them. All was done in the name of Capitalism.

 

Again a political statement, Martin Luther King's assassination was by a lone fringe assassin who had no issue with the economic system, it was political and sociological in origin. The removal of Native American peoples was a question of internal Imperialism. The genocide of the Indians occurred more than a hundred years after the pilgrims and occurred mainly west of the Mississippi not Massachusetts

 

 

Even today, America still has "slaves", although not in the traditional, chain and whip sense. Mexicans pick vegetables and do farm, construction, and other forms of labor for next to nothing, because of their "illegal" status.

 

I think that your definition of 'slaves' is extremely broad, since in the world today there is actual slavery. Now the actual slavery in the south was an economic issue but I believe that a four year Civil War was conducted to rectify that among other issues..

 

 

Employees in China work suicidal hours in factories making electronic gadgets for Americans for about three hundred dollars a month. Indonesians have children in sweatshops making clothes for dollars a month. All in the name of Capitalism. So yeah, Capitalism works well when you're on the receiving end. For everybody else…not so much. So how long can we exploit others? . And we wonder why there are no jobs here.

 

The Chinese working long hours is a product of their form of Socialism, that it serves capitalism is more a justification of the viability of the latter and an indictment of the former. As for the conditions in Indonesia, I would defer to you, being more familiar with them than I.

There are jobs here and will be more in the future, recession is a cyclic event and will pass. Capitalism promotes innovation and diversity in the marketplace which will in turn create new industries and jobs.

[JimboUK]

Well, I think the whole concept of socialism would never work, I mean, capitalism has worked very well for the last couple hundred years hasn't it? So every few years we stumble, but we end up getting back up stronger than before, with new lessons learned, the problem is simply at the core of human nature, its the same problem faced by socialism, communism, dictatorships, monarchy, anarchy, even theocracy. As humans we want MORE, and as humans we can be lazy, and as humans we can sometimes be selfish enough to think that everyone has to hand us everything. Every single political or economic system ever designed could easily work, just not with creatures of the same mentality that we humans have.

The day that men and women cease to fight, lie, and steal is the day they stop being men and women, and start being something else entirely. We are going to have to put up with this crap, and capitalism seems to be the only system where this can be turned into an advantage. In all the other systems we get lazy people who live like the hard workers, we get an elite few who control absolutely everything without having to really work for it, or we get some other variety of foolishness that I cant think of right now.

Don't get me wrong, we have plenty of foolishness over here as well, but it doesn't have the same opportunities to thrive.

 

Exactly, socialism goes against human nature.

 

I don't know who said this but they've summed it up nicely.

 

When you implement “from each according to his ability, to each according to his need,” magically, everyone starts having quite a lot of need and very little ability.

[Balagor]

@Sinophile

I just love your cartoon. It realy explains all.

 

@jim_uk

You obvisiouly think socialism is against human nature?

Well, what is it then that makes us human? Our intelligence? No, we can find insects far more intelligent than humans. Is that we walk on to legs then? No, a spider uses 8, which must be far more complicated to coordinate.

What makes humans slightly different from other species of mammils, is our deep felt emotions, our feelings, our caring. Not that other animals do not care for their offspring, but when the weak can not follow up, they will be left to their destiny. That is how it is, to keep a strong group of survivers.

We were once like that, but distinguished ourselves by care for each other. Perhaps we endagered ourselves in nature by helping the weak, but the reward was a larger group of individuals. That´s why we today have a strong urge to be social, help eachother, do what ever we can to get the weak in the group to follow. That´s why a social system or "socialism is indeed adapted to human nature. As a matter of fact, it is a product of human nature.