No, Lisa Benson, it’s not the socialism. Relabel the frying pan REFUSAL TO PAY. Nations that won’t pay for their social services can end up like Greece.
That’s part of the danger of the ME Party: It rails against taxes but it wants to save Social Security & Medicare; it wants a huge, bloated military, but it doesn’t want to pay for any of this.
If you want a civilized society, then you must pay for it. If you don’t want to pay, then you want to return to the nineteenth century: tainted food, no medical care, no safety net for the aged, unsafe products, potentially toxic drugs, dangerous workplaces, &c.
With all of our real problems let’s not let the GOP and the FAR RIGHT get away with waving this old flag.
Obama and the DEM are not going to turn America into a Socalist State – Heck the Obama and the DEMS can barely get Health Care passed let along destroy Capitalism.
Our recent history shows that the only ones who seem able to destroy Capitalism were Bush and the GOP.
Clark Kent, if we called Socialism Nationalism then folks would feel better. You are right about the taxes! If the wealthy paid their fair share ( and no nonsense about trickle down whatever ) things would be a lot better!
Well LBJ won that one 46 years ago and now the same label is being touted again. Maybe it’s time to put my Pat Paulsen for President bumper sticker into play.
Greece’s problems, if anyone including Ms. Benson, cared to investigate, stem from a rampant number of people not paying taxes for years and years and out and out corruption also running amok for many, many years. It finally has caught up to them.
“It’s quite another to create a system that rewards people that WILL not support themselves. (see the article that talks about people turning down work because unemployment pays more and it hasn’t run out yet.)”
We agree that this is a problem and needs to be solved.
“You want the wealthy to pay their “fair” share? Then abolish the current tax code and the IRS. The law is so convoluted that a good tax lawyer can keep you from any tax at all. When I ran my own business I never had to show a profit. The law let me off the hook every year. Get rid of it and start over.”
I agree with you here. It’s so very easy to get out of paying your taxes if you can manipulate your sheets. So many loopholes and other weird deductions that allow one with the knowledge to easily get out of paying the vast majority of their taxes. This hurts those who honestly do pay.
In addition, would those “wealthy” be small business owners too? What is their far share as well? Remember, if you raise their taxes the paid employees feel the burn then.
BrianCook, ReFlex-76, JPTewel all said something I wanted to say so it has all been said, more or less
But it did remind me of a chat Libertarian1 and I had a few months back about socialism and the woes of these countries. (sorry for those without genius accounts)
A Marxist would probably say that the continuing economics troubles in the US are Europe are a proof that Capitalism doesn’t work. Everyone can claim it’s the other guy’s fault.
@leerab78 - How about you go live there, I think you’ll like the complete lack of civil liberties.
Interesting how all the completely or mostly socialist countries such as China, the USSR, and Venezuela all stifle free speech and have total disregard for any civil liberties.
@fennec - You’re right, those countries don’t really follow socialism completely yet, but they are adopting more and more of the socialism ideology. Unfortunately, the more services that are provided, the more people on welfare, the less people feel obligated to work. Let’s face it, once you get to the point where the effort you put in does not reflect in the reward, people work less and less. Socialism will end in failure, as it always has.
@ccamealy - if you’re going to argue economics then argue economics. Civil liberties has nothing to do with the topic being discussed. Are you saying that socialism has lead China to be poor?
The left that I grew up with did not believe that everyone should be on welfare. It did believe that workers should get a fair return for their labor. It also believed that those who, for no fault of their own, were unable to work should not be left to die in the gutter. The left I grew up with thought that work was good for people (good work, at least. Stoop labor is no good for anyone). This all goes back to Hegel, and it’s in Marx, too.
I’ve always wondered what we did before “Socialism” was invented in 1837. People lived in Utopian Social Societies (Co-Ops) which seems like a good idea.
When the Industrial Revolution came along (creating boring repetitive jobs for little wages) Karl Marx capitalized on workers who were suffering giving Socialism a bad reputation.
I think they should have used something else besides “Socialism” to describe Marxist rhetoric.
“You’re right, those countries don’t really follow socialism completely yet,”
Yet the Right says they’re “socialist” countries.
“I think you’ll like the complete lack of civil liberties.”
Civil liberties are a pipe dream. In practice neither side really cares about them. The left balks when it comes time to give them (see: major talk of gender identity being dropped from ENDA AGAIN) and the right loves to incur on them (see: Oklahoma abortion law). Heck we have people in Congress now (Liebermann & 2 Republicans) trying to make it so that if the government says you’re affiliated with terrorists you can have your citizenship stripped just like that.
I was sort of hoping that my post about work and the left might dispel some misconceptions, or at least encourage some recognition of nuance and complexity, but evidently it had no effect.
”Eugene Debs as Socialist, Suffragist and Birth Control Advocate”
“As a socialist deeply involved in the American pre-war movement, Debs found more like minds among his political peers. Debs continued speaking and writing on behalf of women using pamphlets, popular speeches and articles, many of which have been diligently preserved by the Eugene V. Debs Foundation.
Never one to shy away from confrontations concerning his deeply-held beliefs, Debs adamantly demanded access to birth control to alleviate the poverty and broken health caused by multiple pregnancies. To further improve families, he claimed that equal pay for women was a necessity, especially since he had personally seen what happened to the widows and orphans left after railroad workers were killed, a routine occurrence in the pre-union railway industry.”
Read more at Suite101: Eugene V. Debs Champion of Women’s Equality: Major American Socialist Argued for Domestic and Labor Rights
We have “IT” so good because a Socialist Man chose to fight for Women’s & Labor’s Rights. Lord-O probably likes his women barefoot & pregnant in the kitchen.
There’s a good biography of Debs by Ray Ginger. Both Big Bill Haywood and Emma Goldman wrote fascinating autobiographies – they were anarchists, not mainstream socialists, but part of the picture.
DrC: asked ”“cats, you’re not that deluded that you think people actually READ other people’s posts around here, are you?”
I was. :( Then again, it would help if I stopped posting in Portuguese. Hmmm, eureka! I think I’ve found my problem….
Anyway…
Stebon asked ”fennec, try using factual information from non-liberal publications. Do liberals ever deal in truth?”
Ahem, dude, The Daily Telegraph is a Conservative broadsheet in the UK and the most widely read one at that. The DT liberal? Ha!
Not sure about The International Business Times and this article came from its Australian off-shoot. But why don’t you look them up to find out instead of claiming any factual article from another point of view is biased? You reveal your bias and ignorance by denouncing whatever is presented to you without much thought or investigation.
ccamealy said “those countries don’t really follow socialism completely yet”
“Yet?” Erm I beg to differ. Ideologies are in constant flux…Economic realities are also coming into play in the more economically developed societies in Europe. They are managing a sense of fairness to its citizens while acknowledging that business requires some independence albeit well regulated.
If anything, European economies are moving away from unquestioned welfare to conditional welfare. The more prosperous EU economies have far more benefits than the southern neighbours in trouble at the momnet. How they have managed these economically is the issue. I disagree that folks from one country are less hard working than another. Possibly less productive in terms of economic output or less efficient, but not less hard-working.
I don’t say it’s there yet but I think the recent and on-going financial crises are going to force them, especially the EU, to rethink how it should proceed further.
Most European countries are settling into a “right-of-centre” or “left-of-centre” position. Sometimes quite hard to distinguish the policy of a “Socialist” or “Conservative” party from others which may be so in name only. Tribal ideologies are the past, I wish folks would catch up.
The EU project is ongoing. Although I’m African in origin, it is one I support because I now live here but one I can also criticise. These crises should be learnt from so that a better, more realistic union is forged.
BrianCrook almost 14 years ago
No, Lisa Benson, it’s not the socialism. Relabel the frying pan REFUSAL TO PAY. Nations that won’t pay for their social services can end up like Greece.
That’s part of the danger of the ME Party: It rails against taxes but it wants to save Social Security & Medicare; it wants a huge, bloated military, but it doesn’t want to pay for any of this.
If you want a civilized society, then you must pay for it. If you don’t want to pay, then you want to return to the nineteenth century: tainted food, no medical care, no safety net for the aged, unsafe products, potentially toxic drugs, dangerous workplaces, &c.
kennethcwarren64 almost 14 years ago
Oh Come ON!
With all of our real problems let’s not let the GOP and the FAR RIGHT get away with waving this old flag.
Obama and the DEM are not going to turn America into a Socalist State – Heck the Obama and the DEMS can barely get Health Care passed let along destroy Capitalism.
Our recent history shows that the only ones who seem able to destroy Capitalism were Bush and the GOP.
Let’s argue about real things.
MaryWorth Premium Member almost 14 years ago
Clark Kent, if we called Socialism Nationalism then folks would feel better. You are right about the taxes! If the wealthy paid their fair share ( and no nonsense about trickle down whatever ) things would be a lot better!
donbeco almost 14 years ago
I still have a bumper sticker that says:
Goldwater of Socialism
Well LBJ won that one 46 years ago and now the same label is being touted again. Maybe it’s time to put my Pat Paulsen for President bumper sticker into play.
JPTewel almost 14 years ago
Greece’s problems, if anyone including Ms. Benson, cared to investigate, stem from a rampant number of people not paying taxes for years and years and out and out corruption also running amok for many, many years. It finally has caught up to them.
Jaedabee Premium Member almost 14 years ago
“It’s quite another to create a system that rewards people that WILL not support themselves. (see the article that talks about people turning down work because unemployment pays more and it hasn’t run out yet.)”
We agree that this is a problem and needs to be solved.“You want the wealthy to pay their “fair” share? Then abolish the current tax code and the IRS. The law is so convoluted that a good tax lawyer can keep you from any tax at all. When I ran my own business I never had to show a profit. The law let me off the hook every year. Get rid of it and start over.”
I agree with you here. It’s so very easy to get out of paying your taxes if you can manipulate your sheets. So many loopholes and other weird deductions that allow one with the knowledge to easily get out of paying the vast majority of their taxes. This hurts those who honestly do pay.Whatroughbeast almost 14 years ago
Radish
I have just one question (right now) for you.
Where did the federal gov’t get the money in the first place?
donbeco almost 14 years ago
Had monies collected from us to fund social security been sheltered from politicians we wouldn’t be having this discussion.
Joe Snedaker almost 14 years ago
Dale Hopson
So what is the “wealthy’s” fair share?
In addition, would those “wealthy” be small business owners too? What is their far share as well? Remember, if you raise their taxes the paid employees feel the burn then.
Dtroutma almost 14 years ago
Lady Capitalism shall come along, give them a kiss, and they will all turn into princes– like B of A, Goldman Sachs, Citicorp, Merrill Lynch et al?
OmqR-IV.0 almost 14 years ago
BrianCook, ReFlex-76, JPTewel all said something I wanted to say so it has all been said, more or less But it did remind me of a chat Libertarian1 and I had a few months back about socialism and the woes of these countries. (sorry for those without genius accounts)
http://www.gocomics.com/michaelramirez/2010/02/12/
Meanwhile, fond childhood memories: “Eu vi um sapo, tralalala”
Eu vi um sapo, um feio sapo Ali na horta, com a boca torta, Tu viste um sapo, um feio sapo Tiveste medo, ou é segredo.
Eu vi um sapo, com um guardanapo Estava a papar, um bom jantar Tu viste um sapo, com um guardanapo E o que comia, e o que fazia.
Eu vi um sapo, a encher o papo Tudo comeu, nem ofereceu Tu viste um sapo, a encher o papo E o bicharoco, não te deu troco.
Eu vi um sapo, um grande sapo Foi mal criado, fiquei zangado Tu viste um sapo, um grande sapo Deixa-lo lá estar, vamos brincar. Eu vi um sapo.
sigh :)
(the key stanza is in bold ;-) )
thekingster almost 14 years ago
Methinks we need to end the era of entitlement in this country all the way around. People who can scarcely read/write are sucking this country dry.
Want to be really scared? Go substitute in a middle school today. Yikes.
‘Nuff said.
Jaedabee Premium Member almost 14 years ago
“Does anyone out there know the meaning of LIBERTY any more?”
LGBT citizens have yet to fully have it.lonecat almost 14 years ago
^ thanks for the links. Information helps.
Rocky Premium Member almost 14 years ago
stebon: Only by accident…
leerab78 almost 14 years ago
@stebon - Have you ever heard of the People’s Republic of China?
lonecat almost 14 years ago
A Marxist would probably say that the continuing economics troubles in the US are Europe are a proof that Capitalism doesn’t work. Everyone can claim it’s the other guy’s fault.
ccamealy almost 14 years ago
@leerab78 - How about you go live there, I think you’ll like the complete lack of civil liberties.
Interesting how all the completely or mostly socialist countries such as China, the USSR, and Venezuela all stifle free speech and have total disregard for any civil liberties.
@fennec - You’re right, those countries don’t really follow socialism completely yet, but they are adopting more and more of the socialism ideology. Unfortunately, the more services that are provided, the more people on welfare, the less people feel obligated to work. Let’s face it, once you get to the point where the effort you put in does not reflect in the reward, people work less and less. Socialism will end in failure, as it always has.
leerab78 almost 14 years ago
@ccamealy - if you’re going to argue economics then argue economics. Civil liberties has nothing to do with the topic being discussed. Are you saying that socialism has lead China to be poor?
lonecat almost 14 years ago
The left that I grew up with did not believe that everyone should be on welfare. It did believe that workers should get a fair return for their labor. It also believed that those who, for no fault of their own, were unable to work should not be left to die in the gutter. The left I grew up with thought that work was good for people (good work, at least. Stoop labor is no good for anyone). This all goes back to Hegel, and it’s in Marx, too.
GJ_Jehosaphat almost 14 years ago
Re: “Main Entry: so·cial·ism … Date: 1837
I’ve always wondered what we did before “Socialism” was invented in 1837. People lived in Utopian Social Societies (Co-Ops) which seems like a good idea.
When the Industrial Revolution came along (creating boring repetitive jobs for little wages) Karl Marx capitalized on workers who were suffering giving Socialism a bad reputation.
I think they should have used something else besides “Socialism” to describe Marxist rhetoric.
Jaedabee Premium Member almost 14 years ago
“Do liberals ever deal in truth?”
Do conservatives?“You’re right, those countries don’t really follow socialism completely yet,”
Yet the Right says they’re “socialist” countries.“I think you’ll like the complete lack of civil liberties.”
Civil liberties are a pipe dream. In practice neither side really cares about them. The left balks when it comes time to give them (see: major talk of gender identity being dropped from ENDA AGAIN) and the right loves to incur on them (see: Oklahoma abortion law). Heck we have people in Congress now (Liebermann & 2 Republicans) trying to make it so that if the government says you’re affiliated with terrorists you can have your citizenship stripped just like that.lonecat almost 14 years ago
I was sort of hoping that my post about work and the left might dispel some misconceptions, or at least encourage some recognition of nuance and complexity, but evidently it had no effect.
GJ_Jehosaphat almost 14 years ago
The Positive Side Of Socialism:
”Eugene Debs as Socialist, Suffragist and Birth Control Advocate”
“As a socialist deeply involved in the American pre-war movement, Debs found more like minds among his political peers. Debs continued speaking and writing on behalf of women using pamphlets, popular speeches and articles, many of which have been diligently preserved by the Eugene V. Debs Foundation.
Never one to shy away from confrontations concerning his deeply-held beliefs, Debs adamantly demanded access to birth control to alleviate the poverty and broken health caused by multiple pregnancies. To further improve families, he claimed that equal pay for women was a necessity, especially since he had personally seen what happened to the widows and orphans left after railroad workers were killed, a routine occurrence in the pre-union railway industry.”
Read more at Suite101: Eugene V. Debs Champion of Women’s Equality: Major American Socialist Argued for Domestic and Labor Rights
We have “IT” so good because a Socialist Man chose to fight for Women’s & Labor’s Rights. Lord-O probably likes his women barefoot & pregnant in the kitchen.
lonecat almost 14 years ago
There’s a good biography of Debs by Ray Ginger. Both Big Bill Haywood and Emma Goldman wrote fascinating autobiographies – they were anarchists, not mainstream socialists, but part of the picture.
donbeco almost 14 years ago
Greece is but a sliver of the world. Suggesting it represents all of Europe is really a reach.
But what is it about the citizens of a country funding a system that helps their fellow man in a time of need is wrong?
Abusing the system is wrong, not the system itself.
donbeco almost 14 years ago
Abusing the system is wrong, not the system itself.
Giving your fellow man a helping hand does not mean you must carry the able for a lifetime.
comYics almost 14 years ago
That usa is already eating its own legs.
OmqR-IV.0 almost 14 years ago
DrC: asked ”“cats, you’re not that deluded that you think people actually READ other people’s posts around here, are you?” I was. :( Then again, it would help if I stopped posting in Portuguese. Hmmm, eureka! I think I’ve found my problem….
Anyway… Stebon asked ”fennec, try using factual information from non-liberal publications. Do liberals ever deal in truth?” Ahem, dude, The Daily Telegraph is a Conservative broadsheet in the UK and the most widely read one at that. The DT liberal? Ha! Not sure about The International Business Times and this article came from its Australian off-shoot. But why don’t you look them up to find out instead of claiming any factual article from another point of view is biased? You reveal your bias and ignorance by denouncing whatever is presented to you without much thought or investigation.
ccamealy said “those countries don’t really follow socialism completely yet” “Yet?” Erm I beg to differ. Ideologies are in constant flux…Economic realities are also coming into play in the more economically developed societies in Europe. They are managing a sense of fairness to its citizens while acknowledging that business requires some independence albeit well regulated. If anything, European economies are moving away from unquestioned welfare to conditional welfare. The more prosperous EU economies have far more benefits than the southern neighbours in trouble at the momnet. How they have managed these economically is the issue. I disagree that folks from one country are less hard working than another. Possibly less productive in terms of economic output or less efficient, but not less hard-working. I don’t say it’s there yet but I think the recent and on-going financial crises are going to force them, especially the EU, to rethink how it should proceed further. Most European countries are settling into a “right-of-centre” or “left-of-centre” position. Sometimes quite hard to distinguish the policy of a “Socialist” or “Conservative” party from others which may be so in name only. Tribal ideologies are the past, I wish folks would catch up.
The EU project is ongoing. Although I’m African in origin, it is one I support because I now live here but one I can also criticise. These crises should be learnt from so that a better, more realistic union is forged.